A Sovereign Light to Unite the World
by Shadow Master
Summary: (BtVS/Final Fantasy XV/Harry Potter/Thundercats/Others?)They say that the seeds of the future are sown in the past but how much influence does the past truly have? Xander's about to find out in a big way!
1. Chapter 1

"A Sovereign Light to Unite the World" by Shadow Master

(BtVS/Final Fantasy XV/Harry Potter/Thundercats/Others?)

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the copyrighted material contained herein. They are the rightful property of their respective creators and/or associated companies. I make no profit from this myself and I do not intend to change this at any point in the future. I write because it's fun and because there are readers who enjoy my stories. Therefore it would be greatly appreciated if no legal action were taken against me for using the mentioned properties to tell a story. I can assure you that you will not get even a tenth of your legal fees back from me. I am but a simple bachelor working minimum wage with the usual middle class bills to pay.

Note : First and foremost let me make it clear that I do not write these stories because I intend to turn writing into a career. I write them because it's fun and it feels nice to receive positive reviews or at least constructive criticism reviews. In the interests of maximizing the quality I do have a beta reader go over every chapter before it is posted. Bottom line? If you do not like my stories or my writing style then I suggest you find something else to read because no matter how hard you bash my work or what sort of negative reviews you write I will ignore you and continue on as if you don't exist. No one is forcing you to read my work and no amount of negative reviews will convince me to give up writing or change how I do things. In fact bashing my work or writing overly negative reviews will only spark defiance in me and motivate me to keep on writing.

Note 2: This is going to be something of an experiment for me in terms of approach and properties involved. Therefore I hope you will forgive any minor mistakes you encounter and still enjoy the story.

Note 3: In terms of timeline this will take place during season 3 of BtVS, in the Harry Potter side of things this will start during both parts of the Deathly Hollows movies and as for the Thundercats side of things it will take elements from both the 2011 cartoon and the 1980s cartoon. Naturally since this is a crossover while there will be some adherence to canon there will also be some changes in the name of artistic license and suspension of disbelief. In the case of that last part I know that some readers will have a greater suspension ability than others but I will do my best to keep those who cannot bring themselves to suspend their disbelief to this degree to a minimum.

Now enough of that stuff let's get on with the show!

 _A Sovereign Light to Unite the World_

It has happened before.

It will happen again.

Scientists would have you believe the universe operates on a timetable of a big bang, expansion, cessation, retraction and then collision, sparking a new big bang. While they have no way of proving it they believe that this sequence has been going on repeatedly for a period of time beyond human comprehension and would continue to go on for a likewise amount of time. What they do not realize is that while the skeleton of their theory is accurate, the meat, the details, is as far from the truth as they can be.

After all, in the realm of science there is no room for the supernatural, whether it manifested in the form of forces that can be harnessed or beings that defy the rules of science.

There is definitely no room for an almighty creator of everything that can bring things into being or remove them from existence with a single thought.

The truth was that not just the universe but all of existence came into being and developed on its own before, only for it all to be reborn, restarted or reincarnated depending on the various points of view that exist. The end was always different each time it happened for the most part but, like many of the tales spun by sentient beings, darkness was always a critical component. Whether it took actual physical form or merely influenced sentient beings into eradicating everything, darkness was always a part of the termination process. Some believe that this is simply the way of things, that sooner or later everything comes to an end, but there is another possibility.

The possibility that existence was meant to be eternal but due to the machinations of evil and its various manifestations, damage mounted up over time until reality could no longer sustain itself.

Naturally the one that created each existence did not want its creation to be destroyed but was unable to prevent it despite some very impressive efforts. Therefore, after the destruction of each existence, the Creator attempted to do better than before and create a reality that the darkness could not harm, much less bring to an end. It changed rules, improved upon the mortal inhabitants and even planted seeds of energy that it knew could harm the darkness. However this only changed the length of duration for each reality, some being shorter while others lasted longer, with all of them still succumbing to the darkness of evil.

The only thing that kept the Creator from feeling such things as frustration or anger was the fact that it was eternal and it had a different perception of time compared to all other forms of life.

It had as much time as it wanted.

As such it would continue its work for as long as it wanted until it succeeded in creating an existence, a reality, truly eternal in nature and impervious to the darkness of evil.

It would examine its past failures to see where its mistakes were made while also incorporating the elements that proved most successful into the next iteration of existence.

One such iteration was unfolding at that very moment and up until a short time ago as the Creator reckoned things, it had been following the same path towards termination as the previous realities. However an anomaly had manifested, an unexpected deviation that defied probability, and this made the Creator happy since it meant that events would now unfold differently.

Would it be for the better? Or would the end come that much quicker?

In all likelihood it would depend on whether or not the elements used in the mortal's creation were brought into full bloom or not. If they were then optimistically the Creator might very well have produced a reality superior to all previous iterations. If not then at the very least another formula, another recipe, could be crossed off and its more promising elements carried over into the next iteration.

For now it would simply observe.

 _ **Sunnydale, California, North America**_

 _ **January 21**_ _ **st**_ _ **, 1999**_

 _ **The Streets of Sunnydale**_

 _ **Xander's POV**_

What has the world come to when the organizations charged with its safety take pages from the playbooks of those who threatened it?

That was the question he had to ask himself repeatedly ever since the whole mess with the Watcher's Council and their bloody test had come to an end. He had originally thought that Buffy had fallen victim to a curse of some kind or some demon mojo but, the more the gang had researched, the less they found. In the end G-Man's own guilty soul caused him to reveal the truth: a test passed down through the ages within the Council. Every time a Slayer reached eighteen her Watcher was expected to covertly use specific means to strip his charge of her powers until she was no deadlier than your average teenage girl. Then the Council threw their protector of humanity into a controlled environment with a strong vampire, intent on seeing if she was smart enough to win without her Slayer powers. The Slayers who succeeded were recognized by the Council and never again could any of the ordinary members question her methods or her abilities.

Most Slayers DIDN'T pass the test and died at the hands of whatever vampire had been secured to be their opponent.

It got worse, though, when Giles revealed that the vampire, Kralik, managed to escape from his captors, killing them before leaving the controlled environment. That little fact should've at the very least put the entire test on hold if not put a stop to it altogether but that was not the case. For one thing Travers didn't see Kralik's escape as a good enough reason for ending the test OR G-Man's revelation to Buffy. For another Kralik turned out to be all in favor of the test so long as it happened on his terms with no control measures in place to save the Slayer should she not prove up to the task of dusting him. Worse than that, the bloodsucker had chosen to kidnap Missus S to use as bait in order to ensure that the Slayer showed up for her execution.

In the end Buffy proved she was more than capable but Giles… because G-Man came to the rescue he'd been fired by the Council. From what he'd been told, Travers thought that a Watcher should be coldhearted and dedicated to the cause, not the troops.

The problem with that, though, was that if you threw your troops under the bus too many times they'd stop obeying orders in favor of taking care of each other. Without troops those that gave orders would find themselves left to their own devices when it came to running their kingdom or protecting it against all the threats that sought to bring it down.

Since then, though, the gang had taken to doing light patrols through some of the less troublesome areas of Sunnydale. The rules were simple: look for signs of trouble and report in if you found anything of note. It was made clear that no aggressive action was to be taken solo against the demons, even if it was just a lone fledgling vampire. Without Buffy and her powers, even a single vampire could bring about death to the most determined of humans.

While a part of him wanted to believe that he could handle a single vamp so long as he was smart about it, he wasn't exactly eager to test that belief in live combat.

That was what he was doing now, though his right hand never left the cross in his pocket or the bottle of holy water in his left hand. True, not everything that prowled atop the Hellmouth would burn if it got holy water splashed on it or a cross shoved in its face, but it was better than nothing. However the best tools for any demon hunter he'd come to understand were his own senses and using them to detect danger before it got close enough to hurt him. As such he looked about at all the shadows on either side of the street for some sign of trouble or something Hellmouthy while not letting himself get too close to them.

It was as he turned a corner though that he spotted something odd.

Three stores down and across the street was old man Isaac's Antique shop but, while it should be dark and closed at this time of night, he could see that the door was wide open. Not only that but he could also see a faint light from within that was moving about, making him instantly suspicious of what might be going on. While not a regular, Tony had occasionally sent him there to try and pawn off whatever dusty old knick-knack he'd found in the attic or find a cheap replacement for something that'd broken in the house. The old man who ran the place was a little off in the head but still relatively pleasant to speak with and had always treated him kindly. It'd been almost two years since he'd last been to the shop, Tony's drinking binges not having broken anything in that time, but he still took notice of it whenever he was in the area.

Knowing it could be nothing, he decided to move in for a closer look to see if anything was wrong. For all he knew Mister Isaac was just doing some late night work when a fuse blew, leaving his shop in darkness with only a flashlight to see anything with. Then again this was a Hellmouth and the scary tended to happen more often than the simple. It was as he got less than a dozen steps from the open door of the store that he heard sounds that either implied that Isaac had snapped and was intent on destroying his own merchandise or there were some uninvited guests making a mess.

It wasn't until he was crouched right outside the door though that he heard growls and snarls that didn't belong to any non-demonic life form he knew of.

That settled it; Hellmouthiness had found old man Isaac and it wasn't being kind to the elderly gent.

"Where is Light, human?" rasped a demonic voice threateningly. "We know it here! WHERE!"

"Oh, it could be there… or maybe there… or maybe it's over there," Isaac replied, sounding like he'd taken some solid hits to his body. "We old humans tend to forget things fairly easily, I'm afraid."

Judging by the increase in growls and the thumps of heavy blows, whatever breed of demon was accosting Isaac hadn't reacted well to the old man's response.

 _He's not going to last very long,_ he thought as he listened to the beating. _Old bones and demons that might have strength greater than the strongest human make for a painful and drawn out death._

He needed to do something, even if he might be getting in over his head. Again.

There was no telling how much longer Mister Isaac had before the damage to his body became irrevocably fatal and, even if he managed to get the others there soon, that didn't necessarily mean they'd fare too much better.

Carefully creeping into the shop, he narrowed his eyes as he tried to figure out precisely how many foes he had to contend with as well as what he had to work with. Peeking over the top of a table he could spot three… no, four demons standing around something on the floor, all dressed in a combination of robes and various metallic accessories. He couldn't see any weapons but that could mean that they were concealed beneath their robes or that they were deadly enough without weapons that they didn't need them. None of them looked particularly muscled or strong but neither did vampires until they slammed their fists into your face. Still, it didn't look like they'd noticed him yet so he still had the element of surprise.

Looking about he tried to find a suitable weapon, something heavy ended or sharp would be best, and finally found it in the form of a sheathed short sword resting in a display case five steps away. True, he had no way of knowing if the blade inside was still sharp or if the weapon was just a display piece, its edges deliberately dulled, but he figured it was his best shot. Creeping more silently than the times when he wanted out of the house without Tony noticing him he advanced on the case holding the weapon. Carefully looking it over he couldn't see any locks on it so he grasped the lid, lifting it up so he could get at the contents inside. He had to be certain that there was no noise or else he'd give away his presence but, once he felt the lid reach its limit, he carefully let it go while being prepared for the possibility of it coming back down.

A few seconds later the sheathed weapon was in his hand and out of the case, allowing him to close the latter in complete silence.

Hearing a particularly nasty sound that definitely, possibly a bone breaking, he knew he'd only get one chance at this so he crept closer to the quartet, using the various display cases and tables as cover. When he figured that he was as close as he was going to get without being spotted he gripped the hilt of the short sword and quietly began to pull it out of its sheath.

Or at least he tried to. The construction of the sheath made it so that even with great care, the scraping of steel was unavoidable.

Thus the four demons took notice of his presence and his desire for a sneak attack was thwarted.

 _Shit._

Speed it was, then.

Charging the nearest demon he thrust the tip of the short sword forward hopefully to where a vital organ rested and, as luck would have it, there was still enough surprise in the demons for it to be taken aback by his bold move. Feeling the weapon pierce flesh he felt confident that this was not simply a useless display piece but rather a weapon ready for battle. Shifting his grip a bit he then forced the blade to cut to the side until it left the demon's body, almost succeeding in cutting it in two.

As soon as the dead demon fell clear of his line of sight towards the next closest demon he hopped over it to make his kill count two. Sadly the shock and surprise of his presence wore off and, just as his sword was about to hit the second demon's left shoulder, a decidedly nasty looking dagger was brought up to block. He knew he was no duelist, even with the memories he'd inherited from Soldier Boy, so he decided to fall back on the tricks he knew for dealing with bullies. Trick number one? Break their stance. You needed a solid stance to attack so he lashed out with his right leg, aiming for the demon's knee. There was very little skill involved, clearly, but he somehow successfully hit it from the side, putting the demon off balance and leading to trick number two: people can't defend very well on their back. With all the strength he could muster he pushed harder on the locked blades, sending the second demon falling backwards and robbing its dagger of even more of its strength. Pushing the defending weapon to the side he allowed his short sword to slide in the opposite direction and, once there was nothing in its way, it dug into the inhuman flesh.

However just when he was about successfully inflict more than a foot of cut flesh his blade hit something that caused it to get knocked clear or the organic matter.

 _Armor probably, or something just as tough._ He decided to move past the downed foe to attack the next one. _Still, it'll take some time for Mister Robe to get back on his feet. Hopefully time enough for me to do a little more damage._

This next foe, though, had been given time enough to draw a weapon of his own, a sword, and from the looks of things knew how to use it beyond 'pointy end goes in the other guy'. Again he knew that there was no way that he could defeat a professional in a fight.

Thus the only course left open to him was to do something stupid.

Depending on whom you asked, it was his specialty.

With as much speed as he could muster he threw his short sword at the guy's body since tossing it at the demon's head would've been too easy to dodge. As soon as it left his hand, though, he pushed off the ground with his feet, knowing he'd have ONE chance to capitalize on what'd come next. If he failed then he'd probably die. If he only partially succeeded he'd leave himself open to the remaining unharmed demon. Only if he succeeded would the conflict finally be over and hopefully he could get old man Isaac some help.

Assuming he could convince an ambulance that it was safe to come there.

The plan? Play on the swordsman's instinctual reaction to immobilize it then get close enough that the very length of the weapon would make it more of a hindrance than anything else. Swords needed room to swing and time to build momentum. If he could get in close he could grab the sword arm, or at least counter the swings of the arm before they got very far.

Too bad he'd guessed wrong about what the demon would do when it saw a sword flying towards its body. He'd assumed that the demon would bat the airborne blade to the side before reassuming a proper stance, giving him an opening to get in close and grip the sword arm before it could return. Instead the demon merely positioned his weapon so that the incoming threat bounced off of it instead. As a result the weapon was not out of position and, with all his momentum focused on going forward, his options for surviving what'd almost certainly be coming next were few.

So he decided to let his inner Hollywood fan boy have a crack at it by both dropping into a knee slide while also limboing backwards as best he could.

Hey! It worked for his favorite action heroes so why not him?

As it turned out Lady Luck decided to give both a metaphorical kiss on the lips, as well as a bit of tongue, too, because not only did he evade the thrust that'd been aimed at his chest but also there was a side benefit. Apparently the demon that he'd only managed to partially cut open had pushed past the pain and recovered quicker than he'd expected and had been moving in to stab him from behind. However, thanks to his spontaneous desire to slide on his knees, the demon with the sword wound up impaling his ally instead, much to their mutual shock.

When he found his short sword was now within arm's reach he scooped it up and in one fluid motion thrust it into the demon swordsman, going into the stomach before the blade's angle of insertion guided it upwards into the other major organs, bypassing the rib cage. When the hilt guard touched the demon's stomach he stirred the blade around inside the unholy thing's body in order to maximize the damage to something important. It wasn't for long, probably only three seconds, but when he suddenly found himself supporting all of the demon's weight he knew it was dead. Pushing it off to the side so it didn't pin him down it hit the floor, its insides quickly flowing out beneath it.

Deciding that he didn't want to get too much of the stuff on him he quickly stood back up, gunk-covered short sword back up into what he hoped was a half-decent ready stance.

Letting his eyes scan the room quickly yet carefully, he noted that the first demon he'd killed was still dead, the second one was dead from a combination of his attack along with its ally's and the third was dead because its insides had been scrambled. That left only one demon still unharmed by his efforts but, from the looks of things, the creature was undecided about whether or not to attack. It made sense. He was a nobody who'd popped up out of nowhere and had managed to kill three of its comrades in virtually no time at all. That had to make the demon wonder if it should risk becoming the fourth corpse on the ground or if running away was the better move.

Schooling his face like some of the badass action heroes he'd seen in the movies, he looked the demon right in the eye and said the most intimidating thing he could think of at the moment.

"So… do you feel lucky, demon?" he asked, eyes narrowed and voice cold. "Lucky enough to risk your life? I am."

As if to emphasize this he raised the short sword into a position he just recalled Giles instructing Buffy to do and made it clear he was ready to finish things.

THAT did it.

The robed demon whirled towards the door and ran out of the antique store as swiftly as its feet could carry it into the night of Sunnydale. Still he waited, not letting the tough guy look leave him, until he was certain that the only conscious things in the room were him and old man Isaac. When he was convinced he finally relaxed, letting the sword drop to his side as he let out a sigh of relief that things hadn't continued. His body was making him all too aware of how his improvised moves had affected it and his mind was clearly pointing out just how close he came to dying.

"I don't know if I should be happy I won or if I should start worrying about the bad stuff that's probably coming to balance things out," he said, sheathing the short sword before turning to Mister Isaac, who by this time had managed to move his body into a sitting position. "Are you okay, Mister Isaac?"

"Well, I think that I shall have to miss out on the grand ball I was planning to attend," Mister Isaac replied, audibly in pain but still showing his usual dry wit. "Such a pity. I had my tuxedo cleaned and pressed."

"Look at it this way: the ball was probably going to be dull as hell anyway," he said with a small grin on his face. "Those things are full of stuffy upper class jerks who only know how to talk about three things: how rich they are, how important they are and how grateful you should be to be standing next to them. You're better off spending the evening at Alfredo's eating good food and watching some basketball."

"They do make some good food there but I think I will bring a book rather than watch what passes for a 'sport' in this country," Mister Isaac said, making it clear that his opinion of basketball was the same as Giles' opinion of the American education system and tea.

"How badly are you banged up?" he asked so he'd have something to tell the 911 people on the phone.

"Well, I do not think I am dying if that's what you are worried about," Mister Isaac replied before his face scrunched up in a grimace. "However I would venture to say that I am developing quite a few colorful bruises at the moment as well as some cracked bones. Not full fractures, mind you, but I dare say it would not take much effort to change that."

Not too bad then but enough that the old man would definitely need to be carried out on a stretcher with some mild to moderate pain medication.

"I'll call an ambulance and get them here ASAP," he said before moving towards the counter that the cash register sat on, since the phone was probably there too.

It took a few rings before the call got picked up but when it was he laid out the situation in a way that would be easiest for those not in the know to swallow: A couple of street toughs broke into old man Isaac's antique shop and tried to get the owner to open the safe in the back only for him to show up to scare them off. It took a bit more dancing around the truth as well as some assurances that the 'street toughs' had gone but eventually he was told that an ambulance was being dispatched and would be there shortly.

That left him with just a few things to do before they arrived.

"Don't suppose this place has a basement or a couple of people sized closets?" he asked looking at Isaac hopefully.

"It has a basement, the door to which should be just through there," Isaac replied pointing gingerly at the archway leading to a rear room of the shop. "Disposing of the bodies, I take it?"

"Let's just say that I don't think either one of us wants to play twenty questions with the Sunnydale P.D. if we don't have to," he replied as he went through the archway and swiftly located the door to the basement.

Once he opened it he quickly began dragging the demon bodies one at a time to the top of the basement stairs before throwing them down. As much as he'd prefer to take them down himself and find something big enough to hide them behind, he didn't want to assume too much where the ambulance's arrival time was concerned. As he did so, though, he made sure to take off and pocket anything that looked like it might show up in one of G-Man's books. One of the daggers, a couple of armor plates with unique looking symbols on them and some bits that could've been either jewelry or some kind of rank insignias. He hid his clues either in his pockets or beneath his clothing so no one'd spot them. Once all the demon bodies were in the basement he quickly went about cleaning up the mess on the floor as best he could with a mop and bucket he found. He knew he wouldn't be able to clean up everything but he hoped that if he cleaned up most of it the rest could be written off as stuff used to care for antiques that'd been knocked over in the struggling.

"There! It's not pretty but there's not enough crap on the floor now to make anyone look too closely," he said after he put the cleaning tools away. "Though you might want to throw away the mop and bucket later. Their insides weren't acid or anything but I doubt they're healthy to keep around even mixed with water and floor cleaner."

"I can replace both cheaply enough," Isaac said with your typical old man smile. "I recall that I have not said this once since you came to my rescue so I will say it now: thank you."

"You're welcome. You'd be surprised how many people after getting rescued around here just run off without saying those two simple words," he said, feeling a warm bit of satisfaction inside of him.

"I imagine the mind numbing terror and survival instincts are responsible for that," Mister Isaac said with a bit of a smirk. "In any case if that is new to you then permit me to add another novelty to this experience. There is a small box beneath the counter, you will recognize it by the ominous symbol of a winged human skull with a sun behind it, bring it to me."

Not seeing the harm he went behind the counter and checked the shelves beneath it, quickly finding the box in question. It was quite old looking and seemed to have been made by an expert craftsman who painstakingly carved the exterior with imagery that all centered on the symbol Isaac had told him to look out for. When he'd heard the description he'd thought the symbol would be more evil looking since skulls typically weren't cheery things and he didn't know a lot of good organizations that used them. This time, though, it looked more… 'noble' was the first word to come to mind, along with chivalrous, so he went with them. Picking the box up he brought it over to old man Isaac, who put it in his lap before opening it despite the pain flare ups from his bruises. The old man then reached in and took out something he held out with the obvious 'take it' intent.

What was taken out? A ring. Black exterior with a golden interior with a circle in the front that had what looked to be the top half of a knight wearing a cape resting its hands on a multifaceted white jewel in the circle's center. The cape looked to be what connected the circle to the rest of the ring and spikes that looked like crystal teeth were what secured both the knight as well as the jewel to the circle. There was a bit more fine carving but he couldn't quite make it out but that didn't matter. It was obviously a fine piece of metalwork and, if the jewel was of the valuable kind rather than something cheap, then it was definitely expensive.

"Go ahead. Try it on for size," Isaac said, sounding like he was interested in seeing how it'd look.

Personally thinking he'd have to decline the reward old man Isaac was offering, he didn't see the harm in trying it on just once just to see what it looked like on his right middle finger. Picking it up, he slid it onto his finger and was minimally surprised that it was an ideal fit, not being so small that it wouldn't go all the way on but not so large that it fall off at the drop of a hat. Clenching his right hand into a fist, he oriented it so he could see what the ring looked like this way and he had to say that, while not a Green Lantern ring, it was pretty cool looking.

Right up until the jewel flashed with an inner light and he heard what sounded like the sounds of some ghost gasping like it'd been resuscitated.

To him that screamed 'this ring is Hellmouthy' so he immediately tried to pull the ring off, with the intent of asking Isaac questions like 'what the fuck' before tossing the ring back at him.

Too bad the thing had apparently magically shrunk since he'd finished putting it on to the point where either it or his finger would need to be cut clean through to remove it.

"What the hell is this all about, Isaac?" he asked, only barely able to keep from yelling at the old man.

"What this is about, young man, is the repayment of a debt long owed," Isaac replied with a smile that was both grateful and yet sad at the same time. "Before you become too distraught I wasn't waiting for you specifically to come along. The ring, as you've no doubt surmised, is magical. To most people it's just an interesting piece of jewelry but for its destined owner it is something far greater as you will find out in due time."

"No offense, Mister Isaac, but if you knew anything about me you'd know that I like to spit in destiny's face before kneeing it in the groin and slamming its head into the nearest solid object," he said with hostility. "How do I get this thing off?"

"You cannot, or at least not by yourself," Isaac replied, not sounding threatened in the least. "That ring was placed into my care when I first opened this antique shop by a certain individual with directions to arrange for people who fit a certain criteria to 'try it on for size'. I was told that should the intended wearer put it on, the ring would secure itself there and be impossible to remove without the aid of the one who gave me the task."

"And who is that? Do you have a phone number or an address for them?" he asked, hoping to get as much info as possible on the person who'd set up him up with his new haunted bling.

"Sadly I do not have either piece of information. I presume that she believed that you would find her swiftly enough on your own," Isaac said with mild regret in his voice. "It is foolish, really, but when I spoke with her about who she intended to receive the ring I had the distinct impression she knew who would receive it, or at least knew of certain traits that the destined owner would have."

"What traits?" he asked, feeling frustrated at not getting more information.

"Why the very ones you exhibited when you chose to come to my aid instead of focusing on your own wellbeing, of course," Isaac replied with an amused smile. "In any case I believe I hear the ambulance approaching. I suspect that before long I shall be on such strong pain medication that my mind will be something of a haze for a few days. You will have to wait until then if you wish to continue this discussion."

Taking a moment to listen, he immediately picked up the familiar sounds of an ambulance's siren and, looking out the window of the antique store, he could see lights.

As much as he wanted to question the old man more and get more details on the female (couldn't be sure the she was human or not) that'd set him up to receive his new ring, it would have to wait. Those not in the know were about to show up so he had to play up the role of the Good Samaritan and feed the paramedics the answers they needed. Once he was clear of the ignorant he'd beat feet back to the library to tell the rest of the gang and hopefully figure out what the HELL he'd stumbled into. Robed demons beating the crap out of an antique store owner who may or may not know about the other side of Sunnydale, a ring that might be haunted as well as stuck on his finger and, unless he was mistaken, something called 'the light' being in town that the demons wanted.

Add it all up and you had one helluva week ahead of him.

 _ **Sunnydale High School Library**_

 _ **An Hour and a Half Later**_

 _ **Rupert Giles' POV**_

"GILES! We got problems!" Xander said as he came barging into the library looking like he'd come back from his patrol in quite the hurry.

"What's wrong, Xander?" Willow asked, looking up from where she was reviewing a text centered on various curative potions.

The smartest of his young charges had always expressed an interest in providing more support for the group other than researching and that had led to the casting of the curse on Angelus at the end of the previous year. While desperate times had convinced him that, despite its dark nature the curse had to be recast, he nevertheless had chosen to do what he could to steer her away from that sort of magic. Curses had one key component that all who cast them needed to have in order for it to affix itself properly to its target: hate. Curses were, after all, meant to cause death or suffering to their intended target and such states were not possible with more positive emotions or even some of the gray ones. However one could only brew up so much hate within themselves before it began to poison the soul and the images his mind conjured of the dark path Willow might go down always made him shudder.

Instead he had introduced her to a field of the arcane that was more akin to the science she was used to and that she would be hard pressed to harm herself with given what was available at the local 'magic shop': Potions. In many ways potion making was a great deal like the chemistry in that it used knowledge of the properties each ingredient possessed to combine them in desirable ways. True, as one unfortunate student in his potions class at the Watcher Academy found out, if one was not VERY careful the outcome could be rather dramatic, if not harmful. Still, with sufficient emphasis on care along with records of the more impressive failures, Willow had proven to be something of a potions' adept. It would still be a while before she progressed to the point where he'd feel safe letting her brew some of the more complex mixtures but it was a feasible possibility.

"Some demons tried to kill old man Isaac!" Xander replied, coming to a stop at the end of the main library table. "Managed to stop'em but I'm thinking it's research time, 'cause these guys were wearing matching outfits and they were looking for something called 'the light', whatever that is."

"Managed to stop them?!" Buffy exclaimed from where she'd been going through several swordsmanship exercises.

Just because her Slayer abilities had not fully returned there was no reason he could not continue her training. With a bit of luck he would be able to pound into her some of the more basic patterns, along with one or two complex disarming techniques. It was a sad fact, as proven by his armory bill, that Buffy tended to rely on brute strength to dispatch the various demons and vampires she crossed paths with. As a result the damage done to the swords she utilized tended to be significant and, while it did not result in the weapons being immediately thrown out, they rarely lasted more than a few months. If during this lull period he could teach her some finesse, some subtlety, it would go a long way to reducing the number of bills he had to pay.

Especially since he was no longer employed by the Council and thus would need to pay out of his own pocket until his replacement arrived.

He was not looking forward to that.

"Well, yeah, they were kicking the crap out of the old guy and if I'd taken the time to call in the cavalry he'd probably be dead," Xander said, defending his actions as best he could. "Besides it worked out, didn't it? I'm alive, not a scratch on me and three of the four of them are dead, plus old man Isaac is alive in the hospital. I'd call that a win!"

"YOU COULD'VE BEEN KILLED!" Willow and Buffy exclaimed with angry yet worried looks on their faces.

While he shared their concern his was far more moderated in nature than what the young ladies were no doubt feeling. He'd told Xander, told all of them, that until Buffy's powers returned to full potency the best course of action was to gather information and only act when they had superior numbers compared to the threat. While he applauded the commitment of his normal charges, he was all too aware of their shortcomings when it came to fighting the various breeds of demon that inhabited the Hellmouth. Most human demon hunters only lasted for a few years before they made the one enemy they should not have and were slain.

High school students only a few years into the struggle would fall much quicker if they were not careful.

"Yeah, well, that's an average night in Sunnydale, really," Xander said, a little hostility to his voice. "We're living on a mouth of hell, ladies. Not everything's gonna announce itself before it gets it kill on and not everything's gonna leave a mess for us to find. Basically we could die at pretty much anytime and anywhere. Besides, the day I let some demons kill an old man is the day I turn in my Scooby gang membership card."

"Perhaps it would be best if you explained what happened," he said, wanting to move things along to the potentially more important part. "If matters are truly as serious as you believe then time will almost certainly be of the essence."

Nodding, Xander proceeded to explain everything that'd happened from the moment he noticed something amiss in the antique store to the moment he began to make his way to the library. Mentally he was a little stunned at the good fortune the lad had experienced during his confrontation with the four robed figures but far be it for him to look the proverbial gift horse in the mouth. It was when the lad mentioned taking samples of the metal accessories and weapons belonging to the demons that his interest focused.

Xander began to retrieve his clues from the various pockets and hiding places and the first item had caused a ping of recognition to echo in his mind and by the time the last piece was set down on the table he knew all too well who the robed demons were.

"Bloody hell!" he exclaimed as he took off his glasses and began to clean them while beginning to pace back and forth.

"What's up?" Xander asked with mild concern. "You look like someone told you that tea's illegal now."

"These items, the demons you fought, they all belong to the Order of the Black Dagger," he replied even as he fought to get his nerves under control. "Just as the Council and various other organizations have divisions tasked with locating objects with the potential to bring about the end of the world there exist evil counterpart divisions belonging to various dark organizations. However instead of seeking artifacts capable of ending the world these divisions seek out items capable of saving the world, or at least countering the efforts of those who wish to end it. The Order of the Black Dagger is one such division, though who they answer to remains a mystery even to the Council."

"So when the demon was asking Mister Isaac about 'the Light', it meant-" Xander said, proving his wits weren't entirely slow.

"That the antique store owner likely had in his possession one such item capable of foiling those who desire to bring about the end of the world," he said, completing the young man's train of thought. "As for what this 'light' might be I am afraid that we are at the mercy of the poor English of his attackers. There are countless items and magical artifacts with the word 'light' in the name and many of them have been lost to the ages. If we knew what form it took or even had some clues as to its nature it is possible I could find a spell that would lead us to it but with nothing… we would have to search the entire antique store top to bottom."

It was then though that he noticed a look on Xander's face that made him pause.

It was the look of a young man who thought he might know something but wasn't sure if he should step forward and reveal it.

"What do you know, Xander?" he asked, hoping that it was just the lad's teenage nerves or a misconception.

"Well, um, Isaac kinda figured I deserved a reward for helping me out so he gave me this ring," Xander replied, holding up his right hand to show the black ring with the jewel at the center. "The thing is… when I put it on it lit up and I could swear I heard a ghost gasping like it'd just come back to life… and now it won't come off."

"What do you mean it won't come off?" Willow asked, walking up to her best friend to get a closer look at the piece of jewelry.

"I mean I've pulled, I've tugged and I've done everything short of cutting off my finger or the ring and it's not budging," Xander replied, trying the things he mentioned (minus the cutting) as he spoke to show how firmly the ring was on his finger. "Old man Isaac said the lady that gave it to him might know but the ambulance showed up before he could say more."

"A lady gave it to him?" he asked, fishing for more information with which to deduce the importance of the ring.

"Yeah. Gave him a list of personality quirks to look out for and asked him to have anyone who matched them try the ring on," Xander replied, letting his right hand drop to his side. "If it lit up and the ghost gasp happened then it'd found its destined owner. If it didn't then I guess he figured out some way to get the ring back so he could give it to whoever came along next."

"Hmmmm… whoever this was it would seem that she possessed at least some skill in gaining glimpses into the future," he said as he considered this new information. "While in most cases destined inheritors of a magical artifact like a ring are linked by blood, there are a few historical cases where specific personality traits were the deciding factor. Even then finding a specific person on a planet with billions of people is no small task and only with considerable information about the future could someone know where to place a ring meant for a specific type of person. I suspect that the ring on your finger may have more importance than is readily perceivable."

"Really? It doesn't look like much to me," Buffy said, walking up to Xander before taking his right hand and giving removing the ring a Slayer's effort.

What happened next only further reinforced his belief that there was something more to the ring than was readily visible.

The moment that Buffy exerted some pressure and effort on the ring the clear jewel in the center lit up with an internal light and, without any visible warning, blue flames tinged with orange appeared. Recoiling from the flame he was shocked to see that even with only a second of contact Buffy's hand had been burned badly enough to turn black. Even as she took four steps away from Xander the flames vanished as though they'd never existed, revealing that while they might have harmed Buffy, nothing at all had been done to the young man's hand.

 _A defensive ward?_ he thought as he considered what he'd just witnessed.

It wasn't unheard of for wearers of mystical items to place spells upon them to prevent a foe from disarming them or stealing the item from them. Had it been intent that had caused the ward to trigger or physical pressure on the ring itself? Or was it something else entirely? He didn't know and this lack of knowledge could prove to be a threat to everyone present. While what he'd just witnessed did lend credence to the idea that it was indeed the ring that the members of the Order of the Black Dagger were after, they needed to know more if they were to refrain from coming to harm. Who made it? What was it made out of? What types of magic was it capable of? Most importantly though was determining what would trigger its defensive wards so they could all be sure to avoid doing so from here on out.

"What the hell?!" Buffy exclaimed even as she raised her eyes from her burnt hand to the ring that'd done the burning.

"Oh god! Buff' I'm sorry! I don't know what happened! I-" Xander exclaimed, shocked and sorry at what'd been done to his friend.

"It is likely that the ring has wards placed on it to prevent thievery," he said, stepping in before matters could escalate further. "Nevertheless it would seem prudent to attempt some manner of analysis on the ring if only to determine how much effort the Order of the Black Dagger will put into acquiring it."

"Aren't they just planning on destroying it?" Willow asked as she emerged from his office with the First Aid box.

"In most cases that is precisely what they do. However there are exceptions to every rule," he replied as he moved to the stairs that led to the bookshelves. "In some cases the holy artifact is impossible to destroy either because of the materials used in its construction or the magical energy infused into the item. In such cases they often try to place the artifact beyond the reach of anyone so as to prevent it from being used against the darkness. Some of the more… ambitious… members of the Order, however, attempt to corrupt the holy item and turn it into its complete opposite. Think of someone taking basic holy water and then, through corruption, making it so that the liquid actually heals or empowers a vampire."

Buffy, Xander and Willow looked at the ring on the young man's hand, no doubt imagining how the blue flames could be used by demons.

It would not be a pretty sight given how quickly it could inflict enough damage to turn the skin black. He was consoled by the fact that Buffy's returning Slayer powers would heal the damage swiftly and hopefully within a few days to a week there would be no sign that anything had happened. Still, some treatment using the usual methods of caring for severe burns would be best, if only to keep the recovery time to a minimum.

"For now, though, it would be best to identify the ring so we may gain a greater understanding of its properties as well as perhaps a method of safely removing it from Xander's finger," he said as he began pulling books off the shelves. "Gaining such knowledge will help us in deciding on a course of action while finding a way to remove it will also make it harder for the Order to find it."

"Um… are you sure there's no chance of them forgetting about it and going home?" Xander asked, sounding unenthused at the idea of being an organization's target. "I mean I killed three of them without getting a mark on me. The one that ran off would probably tell his bosses and convince them to try something else right?"

"Sadly the Order of the Black Dagger is filled with fanatics utterly dedicated to their cause," he replied, not wanting to scare the lad but believing the truth to be better than a lie. "In all likelihood the one that you allowed to escape will be tortured over the greater part of a month once it has conveyed all it knows of the encounter. Then they will likely assign twice the number of devotees to acquiring the ring, providing better armor as well as better weapons. Depending on how they view the ring they might even assign one of their more skilled members to ensure the mission's success."

Silence reigned in the library.

All three of the founding teenage members of their group were looking at him with fear and their jaws hanging loose in shock.

He might have gone a tad overboard with the honesty.

"That being said, however, the nearest conclave of the Order is in Texas if I'm not mistaken. Given that most demonic species despise technology in all its forms it is unlikely that the survivor will be able to convey his report over the telephone," he said, attempting to point out what silver lining there was to the situation. "When any manner of automobiles is thrown into the mix and we likely have at least a week before we can expect retaliation. That should prove sufficient time to devise a method of permanently putting an end to their efforts to acquire the ring."

"Such as?" Buffy asked after Willow finished bandaging their hand.

"Well… er… presuming that we can find a means of removing it from Xander's finger I could certainly contact the Council to have it placed in their care," he replied, putting forth whatever came to mind. "Or perhaps the Vatican would be an acceptable custodian for the artifact. Both are powerful and the Order has never shown itself to have the resolve needed to attack either organization directly."

"So basically get it off me and pass the buck to someone else." Xander said, summing up his proposals in a single sentence. "Sounds like a plan to me."

"Just how powerful are these guys, Giles?" Willow asked looking at him with her usual hunger for information. "Are we talking a group big enough to take over L.A. if they wanted to or are we talking about less than a hundred members living out of caves or remote temples?"

"No, no, no! While the Order of the Black Dagger possesses formidable warriors and clerics, neither is numerous enough for them to seize a major American city. For one thing many more powerful groups have already staked claims on various parts of each major city and would retaliate should the Order attempt to claim everything for themselves," he replied, shaking his head at the ridiculous possibility the intelligent teenager offered. "As for the other option it is likely that there may be a few remote temples since the Order has been around for many centuries. In the last report I read it was estimated that the membership numbered an estimated twenty-two thousand worldwide."

"And the odds of them sending say… a hundred of them here to get the ring?" Xander asked, sounding like he might faint if the answer he received was not reassuring.

"Quite unlikely. If the Council had a branch office in town and it was known to house some of its more prominent members, including both Buffy and Faith, then perhaps a hundred of the Order's members might show up in a week," he replied with a shake of his head. "However with just our little group to contend with I would be surprised if they sent more than ten of their ranks to acquire the ring."

"I can deal with ten," Buffy said, sounding only a little worried. "A week should be just enough for me to get my Slayer mojo back and for my hand to heal up."

"Indeed," he said, putting down the books he'd selected on the table. "Now let us see if we can identify Xander's ring. These books contain information pertaining to most of the more noteworthy holy artifacts in the world. If we fail to find anything of relevance I do have a few non-Council sources I can call upon for assistance."

"All inside of a week?" Willow asked, sounding a little doubtful.

"It will require a measure of dedication but there are not too many books here that specifically focus on holy artifacts. Therefore I believe we will be able to finish searching through them fairly quickly," he replied, mentally coming up with a short list of those most likely to aid him while also possessing familiarity with the subject matter. "Once that is done then I can consult with my personal sources. By tapping so many different sources, we are sure to find something useful before the Order returns to claim the ring."

"I hope so, 'cause otherwise the only chance I'll have is to give the whole drifter lifestyle a try and keep moving about to stay clear of them." Xander was clearly trying to look like it wasn't a big thing but the effort never reached his eyes.

The young man knew all too well that if they could not devise a means by which they could ensure the Order's indefinite retreat from Sunnydale or could not separate him from the ring, Sunnydale would not be safe for him. Buffy would likely have her full Slayer powers back by the time the Order's next group arrived but even if she slew the ten he predicted the organization would deploy could simply lead to twenty being sent next time. As the number of enemy warriors increased, the odds of Buffy being able to defeat all of them, even with Faith's assistance, would only get worse.

Then there was the fact that his replacement from the Council was likely to arrive within the week as well.

He had little doubt that whomever Travers chose they would be a stickler for the rules, worshipped the ground the governing body walked on and wouldn't have a single thought in their heads to call their own. The Traditionalist faction that currently held governing power over the Council were somewhat obsessed with making all the big decisions themselves and did not like it when their pawns exercised some initiative when a choice in the field needed to be made. As such it was standard operating procedure for any decisions of a certain importance to be passed along to them by the usual means while the day-to-day choices were controlled indirectly via thorough training. Direct control via the phone or in person meetings and indirect control via conditioning applied during their instruction at the Academy.

No doubt when that replacement arrived and learned of the situation they would not hesitate to notify Travers of the development. After that the situation would proceed in one of two ways: either the head of the Council would order Xander's immediate relocation to London or would propose chopping off the finger the ring was on, sending just it to London for safe keeping. Travers and his lot had always been opposed to Buffy having any friends of any sort, believing that they would be distractions at best or exploitable weaknesses at worst. No doubt the replacement would be of a similar mind since that would be in keeping with the Traditionalists' point of view. Normally, when he had an opposing point of view with regards to the governing body of the Council, he would put together a well worded argument, gather what allies in the Council he had and then make his position known.

Now that he was no longer a member of the Council and the Giles family was not wealthy enough or connected enough to make matters difficult for the Traditionalists, he had nothing to use against them.

In the end separating the ring from Xander's finger without amputating said finger was the best way to resolve the situation favorably, so picking up the top most book he began to go through it.

He prayed that they would succeed before any hard choices would need to be made.

 _ **Two Days Later**_

 _ **After School**_

 _ **Library**_

 _ **Willow's POV**_

"Well, that's the last of them," she said, closing the last book Giles had set aside for their research. "Over a hundred holy items and none of them even look a little like your ring."

"Guess that means it's worthless, right?" Xander asked, looking a little reassured by the absence of identifying information. "I mean, if it was something important it'd be in the books somewhere."

"Not necessarily. These books are hardly the sum total of human knowledge with regards to holy artifacts, and even if they were, it is likely some artifacts exist that have never been recorded to paper," Giles said, sounding a little surprised at their lack of progress. "In most cases this is because they have never been found but in other cases they are deliberately kept out of written records for the sake of security. I find myself hoping that it is the former since it will cause the Order to be extra cautious since they will not know what it can do. If, however, it is the latter…"

"…Then I could have a magical weapon of mass destruction on my finger." Xander finished with the previous reassurance vanishing to be replaced by a grim expression. "Great. The old Harris luck shines through yet again."

"I doubt it is anything that serious. From your own description of your conversation with Mister Isaac, the previous guardian of the ring gave it to him with little in the way of additional protection measures beyond a box," Giles said, sounding as though he doubted the ring was that powerful. "If the ring truly had that sort of power yet had purposefully been kept secret then I doubt any rational person would let it out of their possession, much less leave it for some 'destined one' to claim."

"You're assuming she was sane to begin with," Xander snorted, obviously not having a favorable opinion of the ring's previous owner. "She coulda been some crazy person who gave the ring to old man Isaac because the voices in her head told her to."

"May I remind you that given what we deal with, the 'voices in her head' might very well be the voices of deities and that they might very well have been benign in nature," Giles pointed out, trying to forestall any irrational venting. "If this is indeed the case then it might very well have been for the better for it to find its way into your possession. Deities often have the ability to perceive future events and anticipate problems well in advance of the moment they actually occur. If the woman was indeed receiving instructions from gods and they were benign in nature, then it would be wise to assume that they had good reasons until evidence to the contrary appears."

"The only gods I know about, G-man, are the ones that ignore you or make your life a living hell for kicks," Xander said, standing up from his chair. "The sooner this ring is off my finger and made someone else's problem, the better."

She couldn't help but agree with her friend.

He was her best friend and, if the incident at the antique shop proved anything, it was that he stumbled upon trouble as much by luck as by desire. Now this wouldn't be so much of a concern if he had a good enough way to protect himself but he didn't. He wasn't a Slayer with inherent weapon knowledge and a superhuman body. He wasn't a Watcher with years of training and a wealth of knowledge in his head. He wasn't even like her: one of the smartest people in the school who was quickly catching up to Giles on the supernatural book smarts and might just be capable of using magic. All he really had was half remembered fragments from his soldier possession and an unwavering loyalty to those he called friend.

While that was all admirable, it wouldn't do much against the vampires and the demons that inhabited Sunnydale.

In each of the cases where Xander had thrown himself into a fight to help Buffy he'd come out of it either having been rescued by the blonde Slayer or with quite a few bruises. Without any super healing ability, the injuries were going to mount up eventually until her friend's body couldn't take anymore.

Then there was the pattern she'd managed to find when she'd gotten it into her head to record each threat that appeared on the Hellmouth and quantify it as best she could. Based on what she'd managed to find out either by being there to see the demon firsthand or what she'd managed to find in Giles' books, there was a definite pattern of escalation at work. The enemies of last year that they'd faced were stronger than those they'd fought Buffy's first year in Sunnydale. When taking into account those they'd faced thus far this year, she knew things were only going to get more dangerous as time went on. She'd shown her findings to Giles and, while impressed at her thoroughness, he had told her that this was not entirely unexpected. Any city or town more than fifty years old tended to have an established demonic community living below the proverbial radar. When new arrivals show up and begin to destroy the old status quo it was only natural that there would be some retaliation along with attempts to restore the old balance.

The Watcher, ex-Watcher, really, implied that eventually a new status quo would be established and the escalation rate would drop to something more manageable.

She wasn't sure if she believed that.

In her opinion things were only going to get more dangerous as time went on and eventually the threats that came their way would be so dangerous that Xander would only get himself killed trying to help from the front lines. She'd already spoken with Buffy about this and the Slayer agreed that something needed to be done to reduce the risk to Xander's life. The immediate solution they both came up with was to take him off the front lines and keep him in the library, where it was more or less safer. Research, errands and the like would be jobs that were safe enough for him while also letting him contribute something to the team. It was like the saying 'there are no small parts, only small actors' implied: just because it wasn't fighting shoulder to shoulder with the Slayer that didn't mean the safer jobs didn't matter. After all, she was mostly research and magic girl with, both not requiring that she put herself into the middle of a fray to see the battle won. Most of the time she stayed in the library and the few times she was in the field she stayed a respectable distance from the fighting before she employed her contribution.

The only down side was that, after examining their argument, she'd been able to spot a few places where Xander COULD call them out as hypocrites or outright ignore them.

That was why once this current crisis was dealt with the two of them planned on speaking with Giles, Oz and the rest of the gang without Xander to get them on board with the plan. It was their hope that if everyone else supported the idea of keeping him in the metaphorical office rather than on the front lines, he'd give in and accept his new position. It would take time but eventually he'd see that she and Buffy were right.

"Whatever the reasons the woman might have had for leaving the ring with Mister Isaac, with our local resources useless I shall have to contact my friends and acquaintances to see if they can help," Giles said, hoping like the rest of them that they had better results on that end. "I just hope it does not cost me too many galleons."

"Gallons? Why'd it cost you water to make a phone call, G-Man?" Xander asked, sounding confused whereas she felt curious.

"Telephones are not the only method of communication in the world, Xander, and for some of my acquaintances they do not even have a phone to begin with," Giles replied, seemingly internally debating what to tell them. "Some can only be contacted by magical means and suffice it to say that there are certain… bureaucratic hindrances… involved that require a fee be paid for a trans-Atlantic connection."

"You mean they've got their own government?" she asked, intrigued at the idea of there being a magical community big enough to require a government that would regulate magical communication.

"Yes, and I am afraid that I cannot divulge any more information on the subject," Giles replied before looking her right in the eyes to convey his seriousness. "The governments such as the one I am referring to have a law regarding the dissemination of information regarding them. Anyone who learns too much about them is usually located and then has their memories concerning the subject erased. I think we can all agree that it would be best to avoid that scenario."

"'Nuff said," Xander said, nodding in agreement.

She frowned at being denied the information she wanted but reluctantly agreed that they had enough on their plates as it was without magical men in black showing up to use their flashy thing on them.

"It will likely take some time to make a connection," Giles said as he walked towards the open door of his office. "Now might be a good time to get something to eat or do some schoolwork."

"Then I call munchy duty," Xander said, pouncing on the job immediately. "I'll swing by Tony's Pizza and grab a few boxes."

"Not without an escort you won't," she said before starting to walk over to the phone to call Buffy.

While the blonde Slayer wasn't completely back to full strength, her physical prowess as of that morning had officially passed the limits of what an ordinary human was capable of. With her sticking close to Xander they wouldn't have to worry about any agent of the Order getting their hands on him.

"Willow! The Order guys won't be back for another four days minimum," Xander said with defensive irritation. "Besides, its daytime now. I PROMISE I'll be back before the sun sets, okay?"

For a moment she considered her friend's counter argument and had to admit it was not completely without merit. It was indeed daylight outside and most demons were nocturnal in nature, or at least preferred to stick to dark places during the day. Both of them had managed to survive growing up in Sunnydale without getting killed while being ignorant of the truth skulking around them. As for the Order, she almost pointed out that Giles' guess of a week as just that, a guess, and the Order could pop back up days earlier for all they knew. Indeed, her worries had conjured up the scenario that Order reinforcements were in the next closest town and the demons would be back tonight. If the Order of the Black Dagger really was a group of fanatics dedicated to the destruction or corruption of holy artifacts then the Hellmouth was a good place to look. It seemed like every other week they wound up tripping over something magical and, while most of it was demonic, there was no reason to assume that there wouldn't be a good handful of holy relics here as well.

 _They'd probably be harder to find with all the hell energy the Hellmouth is putting out acting like a smokescreen but its not impossible,_ she thought, turning to face her best friend. _If their scavenger hunt list is long enough, there could be a lot of them close by._

Unfortunately she knew that Xander would only say she was being paranoid so, with a sigh, she nodded in concession to his terms.

"And if you stumble across any other stores getting robbed, you'd better keep on walking, mister!" she yelled at him as he left the library.

A single hand wave of acknowledgement was all she got in response to her order.

It was times like this that she really wished her best friend had been born a dog so no one would think it odd that there was a leash around his neck.

 _ **The Streets of Sunnydale**_

 _ **Heading towards Tony's Pizza**_

 _ **Xander's POV**_

 _I can't believe I'm actually CONSIDERING going to the hospital to get my finger amputated and reattached!_ he thought as he navigated the sidewalks to the pizzeria. _It would solve my problems but it's still creepy._

The fact of the matter was that with the books coming up empty on what the ring on his finger was, it was looking more and more like he had a date with maybe ten demon fanatics. Considering that the same number of armed human fanatics was a nightmare all its own, his imagination wasn't painting a pretty picture when the demonic variable was thrown into the equation. Even when he inserted the image of Buffy and Faith kicking ass, he couldn't quite shake the image that that might not be enough to save the day or, more precisely, him.

Most of the threats they'd beaten in the past hadn't been much better than a turf war between rival gangs. No military discipline, no complex strategies, just straightforward fighting, with only Angelus employing psychological warfare to its fullest. Even the Order of Taraka was only marginally better than the usual street riff-raff as, instead of fighting as a team, they each pulled the lone wolf routine. While it'd be nice if the demons the Black Dagger sent after him were like your typical vamp minions, direct and uncoordinated, if they employed even the least amount of strategy and worked in concert with one another the Scoobies would be hard pressed to prevail.

For all their loyalty to Buffy, their group consisted of high school students and a single Watcher; hardly a group of trained experts with years of experience fighting a guerilla war against the stuff of nightmares.

Maybe in time, if they put a little more effort into becoming a true team of warriors, they might be enough to hold their own against whatever the Black Dagger threw at them.

As they were now, though, they'd only last until either numbers or warriors of greater quality proved too much for them to overcome.

 _If things start getting hairy… I'll do what I have to do._ he thought grimly even as the pizzeria came into view.

A short while later he was in front of the cashier, dishing out the toppings combinations that he knew the gang liked along with a two liter bottle of soda. Fortunately for him the owner of the pizzeria knew the Scoobies and had an inkling of what they did to keep Sunnydale safe, so they were allowed to drum up a tab so long as it was paid off at the end of each month. The rest of the gang knew this and pitched in when the tab came due so he wouldn't have to shoulder the entire bill alone, so it pretty much worked out for all parties.

As he turned around to leave and make his way back to the library, he came a cross a mildly pleasant surprise when he saw Faith coming in the pizzeria's door. From the ways he was rifling through her pockets it was obvious she planned on buying something but, since he was already here and putting something on the gang's tab, he decided to put an end to that.

"Hey, Faith!" he said loudly enough that she'd be able to hear him over the usual customer noise around them. "No need to pay up now. We can just add it to the Scooby gang tab."

"Don't need any charity, X," Faith said, trying to sound nonchalant but unable to completely remove the irritation. "I can pay my own way."

"Never said you couldn't. Just thought you might like to eat a bit more and spend the rest of the month rolling vamps for cash so you can pay your bit of the tab," he said, experiencing similar feelings when his financial status was brought to light by anyone. "More food, more time. Sounds like a good deal to me."

Faith mulled it over for a couple of minutes but, when she raised her eyes to him again, he could tell that she was willing to play along with the intent of paying up on time.

Three more pizza's heavy on the meat later and the both of them were walking back towards the high school, with Faith coming along mostly to pick up some gear before going out on patrol. Figuring she might be a little more ambitious with her slaying quota than Buffy was, he asked her if she'd seen any robed figures like the ones he'd killed roaming about. While he was still pinning his hopes on Giles' one week prediction proving to be accurate, he figured it'd be smart to keep sharp just in case.

"Nah, just the usual fangs and the horn heads," Faith replied, shaking her head. "Why? What's up?"

"You mean Giles and Buffy didn't fill you in?" he asked, a little surprised that the dark haired Slayer was clueless.

You'd think that with Buffy benched thanks to the lingering affects of the drugs that Giles would've brought Faith up to speed to fill in on the slayage and keep an eye out for surprises.

Apparently not judging from the look on Faith's face.

"No, they didn't tell me shit," Faith replied, sounding moderately annoyed. "What's going on?"

"Basically I pulled a good Samaritan when some robed demons were beating the crap out of the owner of that antique store over on Fourth Street. Turns out they belong to some demon club that likes to smash or turn evil any holy magic stuff they can find," he replied, keeping his explanation short and to the point. "As luck would have it I happen to have something they'd very much like to get their clawed hands on. Thing is I'm kinda attached to it, or it to me."

Holding up his right hand so she could see the damned thing, he took it as a good thing that she didn't immediately make any jokes at his expense.

"Wicked ring. How'd it get on there anyway?" she asked after getting a good look at the piece of jewelry.

"The store owner, Mister Isaac, wanted to give it to me as a reward for saving him," he replied, making a mental note to visit the hospital tomorrow to fish for some more info.

Even if old man Isaac claimed he didn't know anything more about the ring or the woman who gave it to him, that didn't mean it was necessarily true. Sure, Giles was contacting some magic people, but with five rough days before the Order showed up looking to hack off his hand to get the ring on a single finger, he had no problem following all the leads he could. Maybe he could dig through some of the old magazines they always kept at the hospital and have Isaac look through them for features similar or identical to those belonging to the woman who'd given him the ring. If necessary he'd cut out each individual feature and piece them together in a sort of collage before giving a nurse enough money to replace the magazines.

If he could piece together a picture of the woman, that would definitely give Giles more to go on than just the ring.

Throw in a patchwork of clothing from the same magazines and maybe they'd be able to narrow down where she was from helping the search for helpful info even more.

"Well, if it's put a bulls eye on your back, you should just chuck it or at least get it out of Sunnydale," Faith said, sounding like she was of the same mindset as him when it came to the blasted thing.

"Wish I could but it won't come off," he said, glaring at the annoying piece of jewelry. "Buffy tried to yank it off and the thing burned her with some kind of magic fire."

"Pretty hot bling then," she said with a bit of a smirk.

"Hot enough to turn your skin black if you're not careful," he pointed out, wanting to make the danger clear. "Don't know why I didn't get burned too but I guess I can just write it off as magic."

"Freaky. So these demon guys are gunning for ya?" she asked rhetorically since he'd already told her. "You sure it's safe for you to be out here now?"

"It's daylight and G-man doesn't think they'll be back four another five days minimum," he replied, half rolling his eyes at the same old concern being sent his way. "Besides now I got a badass Slayer walking escort with me, so I'm as safe as I'm gonna be in Sunnydale."

"Careful, though. My rates for guarding bodies can be pretty steep," she said, obviously implying the alternative services provided by some lady escorts.

Used to the dark haired Slayer's mind going into the gutter when it came to her sense of humor, he just smiled in appreciation of her taking the word 'escort' and having some fun with it.

"Hey, I'm good for it!" he said with a bit of humor. "And if my bank account runs dry I can always work off the debt some way."

"Careful you don't write checks your body can't cash, X," she said with a saucy look but that he knew was just her messing with him.

If there was one thing he'd come to know about Faith pretty early on was that the girl had issues, even if he didn't know what all of them were. Sure, she came on strong as the sexy and wild girl with some seriously thick skin, but he could see that it was at least half a self-defense measure. He did the same sort of thing kinda when it came to goofing off and trying to make people laugh. He did it because he didn't want his friends to know about his home life with Tony and his mother, or for those who already had a pretty good idea he didn't want them to think it bothered him all that much. The truth of the matter was that it always hurt a little whenever he saw what a proper family looked like and the times he spent over at the homes of his friends, he sometimes pretended that they were his family too.

He suspected that it was the same thing with Faith with him being in the dark because the teenage girl didn't want to think about the bad parts of her life or get the 'pity look' from others. As much as others thought that learning more and helping was a good thing too, few failed to take into consideration how painful and at times traumatic talking about those things were. Much like the majority of the people in Sunnydale repressing the truth and finding something more comfortable to think about was a crucial coping mechanism for him.

Basically, until she did something out of character that indicated she wanted to talk about it or was serious about doing… THAT, he'd assume she was just messing with him for yuks.

"I dunno… might just surprise ya," he said, waggling his eyebrows to let her know he was joking.

"Might just have to take you up on that someday, X," she said with a bit of good humor before easing back into a more casual mood.

His mind took a brief hop into the gutter at those words; he was your average teenage male after all, but pulled himself out of it when he realized it probably wouldn't ever happen.

 _Maybe it's better this way,_ he thought remembering how things had gone with Cordy. _My luck with women hasn't exactly been stellar the last couple of years._

Ampata, Praying Mantis Lady and the whole love spell mess.

Then, of course, there was that whole mistake with Willow in the basement of Spike's warehouse lair that destroyed what could've been the best thing to ever happen to him.

He wasn't ready to give up on finding Miss Right but he did acknowledge that it might take more time than he realized to find a girl willing to get serious with him.

 _Hopefully I'll find her before I start going bald._


	2. Prophecy? What is it good for?

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the copyrighted materials contained herein. They are the rightful property of their respective creators and/or associated companies. I make no profit from this whatsoever and I have no intention of changing that at any point in the future. I write because it's fun and because there are those who enjoy reading my work. Therefore I would greatly appreciate it if no legal action were taken against me. I can assure you that whatever you got from me wouldn't cover even a fifth of your legal fees.

 _ **Rupert Giles' Flat**_

 _ **Sunnydale California**_

 _ **Late Evening**_

 _ **Giles' POV**_

 _I hope he is not late,_ he thought as he waited for one of his sources to arrive. _If what I have heard is true then he's had quite the trying time this past couple of years._

News between himself and his friend was difficult to come by, given the laws that insisted on the secrecy of the community of magic users, but there were ways. Based on what he'd received the last couple of years it'd sounded like his friend's world was getting decidedly grim and dangerous, with the last message he'd received stating that communications would have to cease for a time. It had only been a little over two months ago that he'd gotten a message saying that the proverbial storm had passed and that it was safe to resume their usual exchanges. They hadn't discussed much since then but when Xander dropped the current crisis in his lap, he knew there were only a few people he could trust to lend a hand.

Filius Flitwick was at the top of that list and that bloody bastard in Atlanta was at the bottom.

As much as he hated John and blamed him for a great many things, the man's skills could not be denied nor his ability to control certain arcane forces. Still, he would wait until the last possible moment before contacting him and the entire time the phone rang he'd be dreading what the git would ask as payment for his services.

Someone knocked on his door. _There he is,_ he thought, walking over and opening the door to admit his friend.

He was somewhat surprised to find that, along with one Filius Flitwick, there were three women with him, their clothes marking them as being members of the same community.

"Good to see you again, Rupert!" Filius declared, opening his arms for a hug.

"Likewise, old friend," he said, bending down to one knee to facilitate the hug. "I have to admit that I did not expect to see you so soon or with company."

"One of the perks of being involved in the final battle with You-know-who is that the international customs agents are less inclined to give you trouble," Filius said as the hug ended. "As for these three, I figured that they'd be useful in helping you with your dilemma and also get some hands on experience with how things are atop a Hellmouth."

Looking at the three, he evaluated them as politely as he could.

The first was a thin woman in her mid-thirties, a shawl draped over her shoulders, wearing glasses with lenses so thick they made her eyes look quite a bit bigger than they really were. The look of random distraction had him wondering if she was entirely mentally stable but reassured himself that Filius would not bring someone with him whose mind was too addled to be of any help.

Next came an attractive Asian girl who looked to be roughly the same age as Buffy and the others, with long dark hair and a freckled nose. From what he could tell her affinity for sorcery allowed her to sense the energies of the Hellmouth much better than a local resident and what she felt was making her somewhat uncomfortable. He could understand that since he too had felt off during his first few weeks in Sunnydale but eventually his body got used to it.

The fact that he'd placed wards on his flat to repel the energies moderately gave him a small sanctuary where he needn't constantly be resisting the corrupting influence of the Hellmouth.

The final unexpected arrival was another teenager with a long mane of brown hair and brown eyes that reminded him all too much of Willow's. They held within them a thirst for knowledge that bordered on an addiction and implied the potential for academic greatness if properly guided. He could just picture what would happen when this girl met Willow. Between the two of them the research portion of the problem solving would be done in half the time he'd originally estimated, with the adults present only needing to double check their work to ensure it was sound.

"Allow me to introduce my colleagues," Filius said, gesturing first to the older woman. "Professor Sybill Trelawney, teacher of Divination at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I thought she might be able to use her skills at divination to gain insight into the ring you mentioned or at the very least provide you with some clues concerning what might be coming your way next."

This piqued his interest somewhat since, even among the Watcher's Council, the name Trelawney was famous in the field of divination. More specifically it was the name Cassandra Trelawney that was known throughout the supernatural community as a great witch and Seer possessing the fabled Inner Eye. According to everything he'd heard about her, the woman's prophecies had a nearly perfect record when it came to coming true, with the only supposed failures being entirely open to interpretation. Some would say they failed since the events didn't occur precisely as the woman had predicted while others insist that the prophecies had indeed come to pass, with any discrepancies being the result of actions taken AFTER the prophecy was spoken aloud.

"Next is a student in Ravenclaw House, Cho Chang," Filius said, indicating the Asian girl who grinned and bowed a bit. "One of my better students in the area of charms and an excellent student in our Defense Against the Dark Arts class. Though still in her final year, I thought it might be educational for her to come along and a fresh perspective could prove insightful."

High praise from his old friend and he had to admit that he too had considered taking Willow somewhere for an educational field trip. Not to any place where they'd get into trouble but perhaps someplace to broaden the horizons of the budding genius and show her just how far she still had to go before attempt the more advanced forms of magic. At the moment the young woman had only been exposed to the books they utilized in research and the times he was required to employ sorcery in order to vanquish the threat of the week. While he had imparted some wisdom to her along the way, as well as some facts, he was all too often too busy to give regular classes on the subject.

"Lastly but certainly not the least is Hermione Granger of Gryffindor House," Filius said turning to look at the last of his travelling companions. "A prodigy in many fields and I dare say she has so much potential it is all but impossible to list what she could do if she puts her mind to it."

Oddly enough instead of blushing at the praise as Willow sometimes would, Miss Granger seemed to take the words as confirmation of that which she already knew. However instead of making her look arrogant and self-centered he felt as though she was simply claiming credit where credit was due. If she was every bit as intelligent as Filius was implying, then his confidence would receive yet another boost and hopefully they would be able to act quickly enough to prevent some of his more terrible predictions from coming to pass.

"Now while your message did contain most of the pertinent facts, I think it would be best to start our efforts with a more detailed accounting of what happened," Filius said, making his way over to one of the chairs in the living room. "Even the smallest detail could prove vital in the end."

Nodding in agreement he began to recount everything that Xander had told him of his night patrolling, how uneventful it'd been for the most part, and how he'd noticed something off about Mister Isaac's antique shop.

"Does this Mister Isaac have any connection to the wizarding community or the supernatural in general?" Filius asked, bringing up the first inquiry to come to mind.

"Not that I am aware of. When I was chosen to be the field Watcher attached to the Slayer, I was provided with a file on Sunnydale as well as any persons of interest that resided in the area," he replied even as a little irritation entered his voice. "Though, given what we have all been through since then, I have to question how reliable the sources of information were. There was certainly no mention of a Hellmouth being here, or the Aurelius clan of vampires."

"Hmmmm… where is this Mister Isaac now?" Filius asked, sounding like he would like to speak with the antique seller.

"Still in the hospital recovering from his injuries," he replied, making a mental note to accompany the Charms professor on his trip.

He continued with the detailed briefing of Xander's adventure right up to the point where the demons mentioned what they were attempting to find out the location of.

"Not much information to go on," Miss Chang said, sounding somewhat disappointed. "There are a number of artifacts with the word 'light' in their name. Even limiting ourselves to holy artifacts in the form of rings will still leave us with quite a list to go through."

"Not necessarily. If Oliver Dragneel's book 'Organizations of Evil and How to Identify Them' is accurate, then most of the items they're credited with targeting are at least three centuries old," Hermione said, sounding like her mind was running a mile a second. "If we add to that items that possess magic that is not obviously perceivable, we should be able to narrow down the possibilities even further. Most holy relics emit a perceivable aura that even the most mundane of practitioners can pick up on. If this ring didn't exhibit anything odd until forced, it's possible that certain conditions are required to access its power or perhaps it has simply lost quite a bit of its strength since it was originally created."

 _Good lord! Filius was not exaggerating with this one,_ he thought as his own mind began to pursue the avenues of research the brilliant young lady had proposed.

When he and the others had begun their research to learn the name of the ring and its history, they had pretty much been just combing through every book he had with little to narrow things down. However what Miss Granger had proposed was so obvious he was severely tempted to smack himself in the forehead for overlooking such logical routes.

Continuing with the debriefing he explained how Xander managed to kill three of the four demons and, as a result, had received the ring as a reward from Mister Isaac. When he got to the young man's description of the jewel in the ring lighting up and hearing an ominous gasp of revival, a look crossed over the faces of the four that immediately had him concerned.

"Professor Flitwick… do you think it could be a Horcrux?" Miss Chang asked, sounding disturbed by the possibility.

"Unlikely, my dear. If the ring were a Horcrux then the Order of the Black Dagger would not be bothering with it," Filius replied, shaking his head in denial.

"If I might ask… what precisely is a Horcrux?" he asked, never having heard the term before.

"Essentially, Rupert, the term 'Horcrux' refers to an object within which a person has concealed part of their soul. They commit an act that chips off a piece of the soul and then they hide it inside an object outside of their body," Filius replied, sounding like it was a dark matter indeed. "The act in question is of course murder, since it is universally considered one of the most evil acts capable of being committed by sapient beings, if not THE most evil act. This act metaphysically damages the soul of the murderer and, with the help of a spell, they can tear the damaged area off of their soul and place it inside an object. The primary benefit of this is that, even if their main body and main soul were to be destroyed, the murderer would not die because a piece of their soul would be tied to the world of the living."

Hearing this he was reminded of the various foul spells and rituals that had been conceived of and performed, not by demons but rather by human beings questing for power, wealth or immortality. It was the dark side of the human soul, the part that any decent person fought against, and ever did it prove that not all evils came from demonkind. He often wondered how the war between the light and the dark might have evolved if humanity as a whole resisted their darker impulses and fought to rid the planet of demonkind.

He'd wager that there would be a great many fewer demonic organizations and cabals staining the Earth at the moment.

"Well, in any case, after the ring reacted to being on Xander's finger, Mister Isaac revealed that a woman had left it in his keeping for a young man matching a specific set of traits. If any lad came in matching these traits, Mister Isaac was instructed to arrange for the lad to try it on and if it didn't react to take it back in preparation for the next prospect," he explained, moving things away from the rather dark topic. "The term 'destined owner' was used, leading me to wonder if this is not just the first step in some unknown plan."

"How interesting!" Professor Trelawney said, sounding quite intrigued. "Such a statement implies that the woman experienced some manner of glimpse into the future. To entrust a holy relic to someone who might very well have been a stranger to her… she must have been very confident in what her Inner Eye showed her."

"And you said in your message that when your charge attempted to remove the ring it produced a blue flame to protect itself?" Filius asked, sounding like he was gaining a solid grasp of things.

"Yes. The flame only lasted for as long as Buffy's fingers were touching it and vanished immediately afterwards."

"Has anyone other than the wearer tried to remove it since?" Miss Granger asked in such a way that he knew she was drawing up a series of tests for after school tomorrow.

"No. The damage the blue flames did to Buffy's hand was quite severe and, without her recuperative abilities, we saw no point in anyone else being harmed," he replied, resolute in his intent to keep any meaningless damage from being done to anyone.

"Perhaps a potion applied to the hands would offer some protection and, if not, the Episkey spell should be able to handle any burns," Miss Granger said, making him think that stopping by the local magic shop might be in order to refill his supply of potion ingredients might be in order before school tomorrow. "After all, we need to determine if the magic that empowers the Slayer is what caused the reaction or if anyone attempting to remove the ring will cause the flames to appear."

"We will gather the necessary ingredients but I would rather not explore that option until all others have failed," Filius said with a bit of reluctance. "What I have heard reminds me of a number of charmed items belonging to nobility of one sort or another in order to prevent the theft of precious heirlooms. That or simple grave robbing. This would also be in keeping with the 'destined owner' comment since such heirlooms are often used as proof of one's lineage when no other records exist."

Now there was a possibility he had not really considered.

Of course the thought had occurred to him but he'd dismissed it in favor of this simply being the latest in a long list of arcane accidents that tended to occur where Xander was concerned. In the time since he'd first met the lad, there had been quite a few unlikely incidents that befell the boy that had him considering words like 'karma' and 'curse'. After all, while the Hellmouth was indeed a veritable hotbed of paranormal phenomena and demonic species, he found it difficult to believe that one teenager could stumble into trouble so often without there being something more to it.

Bad luck only covered so much.

"Well, in any case it is probably best to settle in since I would wager that you all will need some time to adjust to the time difference," he said after looking at the clock hanging on the wall. "There is a guest room on the second floor with two singles and, if you will give me a few moments, the couch folds out into a bed as well."

"Quite right. Floo lag is not to be underestimated and if we are to be at our best to aid your young friend," Filius said with an agreeable smile before a more serious thought occurred to him. "Have they been informed of our…'community'?"

"Not really. I have informed them that there is a group with laws pertaining to the dissemination of knowledge about them but nothing more than that," he replied, knowing the importance of this question. "They are familiar with the supernatural and the demonic as well as the varieties of magic not controlled by your community, though."

"Good. So long as we phrase things properly and refrain from doing anything unmistakably linked to the Wizarding World, then the Magical Congress should have nothing to complain about," Filius said, comforted by the fact that there wouldn't be any political complications.

 _One can hope,_ he thought, remembering his own encounters with America's counterpart to the Ministry of Magic.

They tended to be less polite than the Ministry and not quite as charming when they crossed off the alternatives to 'helping' them.

 _ **Sunnydale High School**_

 _ **The Next Day, Morning**_

 _ **Buffy's POV**_

 _Ouch,_ she thought as she experimented with her hand to see how much the burn still hurt. _Not quite done yet._

It'd been three days since Xander's new ring accidentally burned her and, while the blackness was mostly gone, it still hurt whenever she did something that stretched that area of skin. She could tell that her Slayer healing was speeding up but it'd still be a while before everything would be back to a perfectly pink pigmentation of skin. Her mom had freaked a bit when she'd seen the bandages when she'd gotten home that night but, after some explaining as well as a warning to be more careful around magical things, everything was A-okay.

She'd gotten a few stares at school but that was nothing new since she was basically a social pariah thanks to Cordelia and Snyder.

Now, though, it was all about Giles' friends figuring out what they could about the stupid ring so they could get it off Xander's finger and ship it off to the Pope or something. They hadn't shown up yet and all she'd been able to get outta Giles was that they were British, so she'd made a mental note to ease up on her Californiase to make talking easier on them. Hopefully they'd be able to help because she didn't like the stuff her mind was coming up with as far as what'd happen when the knife guys came back. She was good and, with Faith backing her up, they'd be able to handle quite a bit but it'd only taken her an hour of thought, as well as remembering Kendra, to know how bad things could go. They had no fortress to go to, no magic spells to keep demons out of their homes and, unless the hermit lifestyle was for them, they occasionally walked about town.

They were more vulnerable than she'd ever be comfortable really thinking about and that stupid ring being around wasn't making things any easier.

Picking up footsteps with her Slayer hearing, she looked towards the doors of the library, waiting for them to open and grant her a first look at the people who might be able to help Xander. They parted half a minute later and the quartet that entered was an even mix of ordinary and weird. The first through was so small she almost thought that someone's kid had trotted into library, but once the details were taken into account the truth became clear. The little man was either a midget or some mini-demon that wasn't setting off her Slayer senses. Giles has told her that there were some demons that weren't dangerous to humans, so she figured Shorty had to be one of them.

The second to enter was an Asian girl who looked to be only a few years older than her and pretty enough that, dressed in the latest fashions in California, she'd be a shoe in to join the Cordettes. Glancing at Xander, she could tell that the girl got his seal of approval as well just by his eyes alone and mentally entertained the notion that the guy thought he might have a chance with someone not born and raised in Sunnydale. It was an interesting enough thought and, if the Asian girl turned out to be a better class of person than Cordelia, she might even encourage him to see how far he could get. It was a mild concern that since the girl was connected to the supernatural there was the possibility of danger but it looked more like she was a student of some kind.

Surely nothing bad could happen dating some bookworm's apprentice.

The next one to enter was a brunette with somewhat fuzzy hair done up in a ponytail but it was her eyes that were the noticed the most. They shone with an intelligence she'd seen in Willow whenever the redhead had managed to find a topic that caught her interest, enough to forget sleeping. It became too easy to imagine how completely nerdy things would get if Willow and this girl dove into a research project. She'd always felt like one of the big things that separated Willow from the rest of the students at Sunnydale High was the fact that there were so few people capable of talking to the redhead as an equal.

If this bushy brunette could manage it then Willow might just have found a pen pal of sorts.

The last to enter gave her flashbacks to Miss French because the lenses made her eyes look ten times bigger than they really were. Curly light brown hair dropped down past the woman's shoulders by a bit and the shawl on her shoulders made her thing of her grandmother. Like the bug her eyes implied her to be, the woman kept shifting her gaze, sometimes by only a little while other times a lot, only rarely settling on the Scooby gang for a couple of minutes. Did she have that attention deficit problem she'd heard her mother talk about once?

In any case she hoped that these people could help Xander out of the mess he'd gotten himself into.

"I trust you all slept well?" Giles asked once the doors finished swinging.

"As well as one could hope for given the time differential between London and California," the mini-demon replied with a friendly smile. "I hope Sybill didn't keep you up. She tends to get a little… nervous whenever she visits new places."

"Not noticeably so. As you can imagine the local demons do not plan their activities with their enemy's sleeping schedule in mind," Giles said, understating how the nasties could and often did disrupt a girl's beauty rest.

"Yes. Quite so," the mini-demon said, sounding like he had experience with this. "Now I presume this is the young man my colleagues are here to see?"

"Yeah. I'm seriously hoping you can get this thing off, 'cause I don't think I can handle having a target on my back." Xander replied, stepping forward.

"Well, we will do the best that we can, young man," the mini-demon said before gesturing to Xander's right hand. "Now let's see what we're working with."

Raising the right hand, she once again got a clear look at the black and gold ring that'd painfully burned her. Once the hand steadied the mini-demon and the two girls took out what to her eyes looked like two really thin and not quite pointy enough stakes. However, when the trio began flicking them and using nonsense words, all the while sending out streaks of light that hit the ring with impressive accuracy, she knew they weren't stakes. It was a bit of surprise for the Scoobies present but not enough of one to get Xander to jerk his hand out of the way.

"Well, this is certainly curious," Mini-Demon said with the 'fascinating' tone Giles usually used when he geeked out over some dusty old scroll. "The metals the ring is composed of are not found on either the mundane periodic table or even the mystical periodic table."

"How can that be possible?" Giles asked, sounding shocked. "All artifacts, regardless of their mystical affinity, are created using materials found in this reality…unless…"

"Unless they were made by someone or something not limited to the materials of our own world." Miss Fuzzy Brunette said before firing off a few more bolts of light at the ring, "I'm not seeing any signs of lingering ether on the ring. Whenever it was forged it must have been a long time ago. Possibly centuries."

"Ether?" Willow asked with her usual curiosity.

"The energy that exists between realms." Mini-Demon explained before adding a few bolts of magic of his own. "Whenever something travels from one realm to another it is exposed, for however brief a period of time, to the energy that exists in between. As is the case with many forms of energy, ether leaves a residue of sorts on anything that it comes into contact with. Non-living materials tend to hold the echo of the energy the longest whereas organic matter tends to reassert its normal state much faster."

"So is it normal for something to have this ether gunk on it for centuries?" Xander asked, sounding a bit uncertain.

"It normally depends on the degree of exposure to the ether. When beings travel between realms, they are normally exposed to the ether for only a second or so," Mini-demon replied, pausing in his magic using to think. "For this ring to have retained as much ether residue on it as our spells have revealed, its duration of contact must have been decidedly longer."

"Longer as it…?" Xander asked, looking for something a little more precise.

"Millenia, in all likelihood," Mini-Demon replied, making an educated guess.

"And it just happened to pop out into some lady's hand who just happened to fix it so that it'd wind up on Xander's finger," she said, both feeling as well as sounding skeptical. "Isn't that a little out there?"

"Not necessarily. Often when practitioners of magic wish to hide something where no one else can find it, they place it in the ether," Mini-Demon replied, making it sound perfectly reasonable. "Since the ether is near infinite in size, unless one knows precisely where they placed an item the odds of finding it are immensely against you. However if the person who put it in the ether dies before the item can be retrieved then its location becomes lost to time. Some witches and warlocks have dedicated quite a bit of time to searching the ether for lost treasures and items, much like a fisherman casts a net to catch fish."

"However even using the various methods available it is often a fruitless venture since it is more random chance that decides what a magic user retrieves from the ether," Miss Brunette Bushy said, sounding like quite the confident student. "Sometimes they gain treasure but other times they gain nothing but trash. Many give up when their losses begin to dramatically exceed their gains."

"So the lady that gave the ring to Isaac did some inter-dimensional fishing, lucked out with the ring and then decided to give it to some old guy hoping he'd give it to the right stranger?" she asked, not being able to make sense of it. "Why spend a lot of time and money to get something good just to give it up?"

"If this lady is indeed a Seer, young lady, then it is possible she foresaw herself bestowing the ring upon the owner of the antique store and then the ring being passed unto young Xander," Sible replied, sounding like those corny fortune tellers she'd seen in the movies. "The Inner Eye sometimes shows us glimpses of the future to prevent an event, while other times it reveals to us what MUST happen if darkness is to be kept at bay."

"Too bad visions don't come with a decoder ring," she said with bitterness she could not keep inside.

"It is often both a blessing and a curse to be able to perceive the future but even what fragments we can comprehend can prove vitally important." Sible said with a measure of understanding. "It is unfortunate that, due to the fluid nature of the future, the glimpses we are given are not easily perceivable."

"Isn't the whole point of predicting the future that it's DEFINITELY going to happen?" Xander asked, sounding a little confused. "If it's not carved in stone then what's the point in seeing the future in the first place?"

"That's just it, young man. At the moment the Seer receives a glimpse of the future that IS what's going to happen so long as circumstances do not change," the mini-demon said, helping out Sible with the explaining. "However the moment the Seer or anyone who learns what they saw begins to act upon what they know, the future is open to change. Whether or not it does change is entirely dependent on what the nature of the event is and what resources are available to affect the desired changes. If those who know of what is to come do not have the means or the intellect to change what they saw, then it will transpire as they saw it. However if the opposite turns out to be the case, then the foreseen event can be altered or nullified outright."

 _I actually understood that,_ she thought with the good kind of surprise.

As she thought on some of the past Slayer dreams she'd experienced and applied what she'd just been told, she had to admit that maybe these were the reasons why they'd had so much trouble thwarting them. Part of the reason was how little they'd learned from the dream about what was going to happen, especially since most of the clips of the future she got came true only days later if not sooner. The other was the fact that they'd been limited in their means to Giles Watcher stuff and what they could get from the local magic store. If Giles' ex-bosses had given him more stuff and her Slayerness had given her a clearer look into the future, they might've been able to do better.

"O-kay…what now?" Xander asked, digesting the information he'd just been given.

"Now we allow Sybill to touch the ring to see if it will trigger a precognitive vision," Filius replied, looking to the lady with inch thick lenses in her glasses. "If it does not there are other methods we can use to learn more."

"Such as?" Giles asked, speaking up for the first time in a while.

"A Tarot card reading for one. Sybill is quite good at that," Mini-demon replied, looking at the ex-Watcher. "With some preparations we can attempt to induce another discharge of that blue fire you mentioned so we can get a better look at it."

"You want to intentionally have someone burn their hand?!" she asked with a little incredulity.

"While it is a possibility, we were able to mix a fire protection potion before coming over," Miss Brunette Bushy said, not sounding worried in the least. "It should provide ample protection against the fire and if not, a simple episkey healing spell should set things right easily enough."

 _Could've used that three days ago,_ she thought with a bit of a grumble, glancing down at her bandaged hand.

It sort of made her wonder why the Council didn't assign one of these people to their Slayers. Not that she didn't appreciate everything Giles had done for her since they'd first met but fire protection potions and healing magic definitely would've made things easier. It definitely would've saved her a few chats with her mother when she'd come up a little banged up.

"Well, let us get down to it, shall we?" Sible asked rhetorically after stepping up to Xander. "Please hold out your right hand and no matter what happens please try to keep it steady."

"Okay. Sure. Youbetcha," Xander said, sounding like he was about as sure about what was going to happen next as she was.

With a gentle hand the woman with the weird glasses reached out with her hand and placed it atop the ring, making direct contact with it. For a few seconds nothing happened, or at least nothing dramatic enough to make her think the woman was seeing the future. She considered the possibility that perhaps the whole 'seeing the future' thing was happening inside Sible's head and that the rest of them would have to wait until it was over before the woman said anything. When two full minutes went by without anything she was about to ask if this was going to take long when with the suddenness of a lightning bolt the woman went rigid like she'd just grabbed an exposed power cable. It only got worse when the woman started gasping for air like nothing was getting into her lungs and she started to move forward to separate the woman from Xander, only to be stopped by the mini-demon.

"Don't worry. Sybill always reacts this way when she experiences a vision and comes out of it with a parched throat and nothing worse," Mini-demon said reassuringly even as the gasping seemed to become more controlled and the full body rigidity loosened a little bit.

"What came to an End, shall Begin Again. When the Children of Thundara and the Ever-Living One clash in the Skies of Gaea, This Age shall End, and the Journey of the King of Light shall begin," Sible gasped but, unless her ears were playing tricks with her, it sounded like there were one or two additional voices coming out of the woman's mouth. "The King, the one that Sees, shall find his Trinity of Companions, In new Forms, yet Same Souls. Through Loss, the path to his Oracle and Healing will be clear. By his hand the Five Great Spirits shall be Awakened and from his choice the New Flame Lord shall Arise! Once the Thirteen Holy Weapons are his, the Spirits shall anoint him as the King of Light, the End of the Ever Living One of Evil will be nigh...and a new Age shall be bbboooorrrnnn!"

With that last word the woman broke into a series of hacking coughs that were perfectly understandable, considering how long she'd been gasping and speaking without stopping. As Sible did so, though, everyone else in the room was trying to make sense of the obvious prophecy the woman had just spit out and what it meant for all of them.

Xander got things off to a good start.

"King of what now!?" Xander asked, sounding like someone had just told him he'd be the next ruler of Mount Olympus after Zeus retired.

She wasn't much better off.

 _ **Xander's POV**_

"O-kay! This is crazy talk," he said, shaking his head in disbelief of what they'd all just heard. "I think she popped one too many brain cells."

"While I will admit that it is more profound than her previous prophecies, I do not believe it should be dismissed as a mistake born of too much strain on the mind," Mister Midget said, sounding like he was giving the spooky rantings some serious thought. "Sybill comes from an illustrious line of Seers and her prophecies have come to pass. Just because this one is decidedly grander than those that came before does not mean it's wrong."

"She's using the word 'king' with me in mind!" he exclaimed, not willing to let even on grain of ground in terms of credibility. "Do I look like I belong on a throne? With a CROWN!? If that's the case then Buffy's a goddess and Willow has the potential to out mojo MERLIN!"

"I will admit, Xander, that imagining you as a king takes suspension of disbelief to a whole new level, I too have heard of the Trelawney family," Giles said in calming tones. "Even if by some chance it is mistaken, the overtones of this prophecy are far too dire to simply ignore. We should at the very least attempt to discern its meaning and only after at least half of it fails to come to pass dismiss is as being in error."

He barely managed to grab hold of the instinctive impulse to once more reject the words of the crazy lady but he succeeded because a big enough part of him had to agree with the logic. With so much talk about 'Ages coming to an end' and 'new Ages beginning', the prophecy was talking about some serious world changing potential. Seeing as how he happened to live on the world and didn't want to roll the dice to see how things would turn out if he let things change, understanding how to stop it was critical.

It didn't mean he had to LIKE it.

"Fine. Let's get with the cryptic to plain English translating," he grumbled, trying to compromise with the ex-Watcher.

"Very well. Let us look at the first line: What came to an End, shall Begin Again," Giles said, taking the lead in making sense of the prophecy. "This would imply that something that happened or existed in the past is going to be restarted in the future. Given the references to a 'King of Light', it is fair to assume that the first line refers to a kingdom or a royal line that was overthrown in the past but may one day soon rise up to rule once more."

"Don't see how that's gonna happen," he said, calling upon his limited knowledge of the world. "Everyone knows that kings and queens don't have any real power in their countries these days. They're celebrities, rich people, and not much else."

"That is true for the most part. There are some countries in the world still ruled by monarchies that hold true governing power over their lands however most are quite small in size," Giles said with a nod of agreement. "If a fallen royal line or country is destined to rise again, it could only occur somewhere where the current ruling government is beginning to show signs of failing weakness."

"Another possibility would be if some manner of natural catastrophe were to occur that would eliminate the holders of a country's key offices decimating any line of succession that might exist," British Willow said, sounding quite sure of her words. "The prophecy on the whole does not imply, much less outright state, that there will be a civil war, or even a legal struggle for power. It could mean that the change will occur so swiftly that neither possibility could transpire."

"A natural disaster like an earthquake would certainly accomplish a swift elimination of the established power structure," Giles said, looking quite thoughtful. "Fortunately such natural phenomena are not impossible to foresee since there are often tremors prior to a major earthquake and noticeable meteorological phenomena before a hurricane or typhoon. If we can gather and examine information of this nature, perhaps we can predict where a natural disaster might occur and determine if sufficient government officials belonging to one country are there at the moment."

"That'll take a lot of time, Giles," Willow pointed out, sounding a little discouraged at the task being proposed. "None of us are seismologists or meteorologists. We'd need to contact the foremost experts in both fields and have them do most of the research."

"Sadly with my ties to the Council severed I have precious few sources of information to call upon to deal with supernatural threats. I have none that are experienced in matters of earthquakes or dangerous weather phenomena," Giles said, sounding discouraged himself at how little he could contribute.

"Perhaps you do not but I do, old friend," Mister Midget reassured with a smile on his face. "Being a professor I have had the opportunity to correspond with a great many people in a variety of fields. While I confess that none of them are experts in matters of science, that particular discipline is not the only way to predict natural disasters. Once our meeting here is concluded I will send word to those best able to help us to begin looking into the matter."

"I only hope they treat this with the gravity I believe it deserves." Giles said, sounding a little more positive.

"I believe they will," Mister Midget said, not doubting his words in the least.

"Very well, that deals with the first line, so let us move onto the second," Giles said before taking a moment to recall the words. "' When the Children of Thundara and the Ever-Living One clash in the Skies of Gaea, This Age shall End, and the Journey of the King of Light shall begin'. This would imply that two factions will engage in battle and may play a crucial role in the old royal line rising again. Given the titles used, it would seem as though we may be dealing with a religious or cultural organization coming into conflict with a deity or a demon with a particularly long lifespan."

"It also kinda sounds like all the fighting will happen up in the air," he said, deciding to put more effort into things, if only to prove he's not who the prophecy is talking about. "Can't be too many religions or demons capable of flying either on their own or in fighter jets."

"True, and most demons with wings have learned to inhabit remote areas as to not draw attention to themselves," Giles said, agreeing with a nod. "However the title 'the Ever-living One' implies that it will be a single demon rather than a multitude of them. A single demon, capable of flight using wings or sorcery, as well as engaging at least two if not more opponents in battle, will certainly narrow our search. Also to have any title at all amongst demonkind implies significant power, or at least a singular accomplishment granting them their infamy."

"We may need to send someone to speak with Drogyn at the Deeper Well," Mister Midget said, sounding as though an unpleasant possibility had presented itself to his mind. "A demon of such power would not be shy about using it. If we do not recognize its title then that can only mean one of two things: either this being enters periods of dormancy, one of which will soon come to an end, or something might well be on the verge of rising from the Deeper Well."

"What is the Deeper Well?" Willow asked, her mind catching on the term.

"The Deeper Well is a burial ground of sorts, a large underground tunnel, really, that stretches from one side of the planet to another. In the Well are thousands of sarcophagi containing the corpses or essences of demons, both ancient as well as of great power," Giles replied, sounding like this was a place no one wanted to talk about, much less visit. "The demons were placed there in order to prevent their resurrection since many of them were of breeds that did not live or die in the manner we are accustomed to. Some of those interred in the Deeper Well could very well be Old Ones the likes of which ruled the world prior to the coming of the mortal races."

"Definitely a good idea to check up on that place," he said, his fear at what might come out of such a place giving him a visible case of the heebie-jeebies.

"As for the 'Children of Thundara', I cannot recall any such group existing either known to the world or just the supernatural community. This could mean that they are a relatively new group who have yet to distinguish themselves to those in power, or that they are a supremely secretive organization," British Willow said, sounding a bit frustrated at her lack of knowledge. "Still, one would think that any religious order or group capable of waging a world changing war would be known to the major governments and monitored. We should check with both our government back home and their American counterparts to see if any group they know of matches the one mentioned in the prophecy."

"Yes, that should prove informative," Giles said, sounding confident in that approach. "Regardless of the nature of the magic these 'Children of Thundara' use, there are some ingredients that continue to pop up whenever magic of a certain class is employed. If we can draw up a short list of spells or rituals that are practical for use in live combat, we can begin to ask around to the various suppliers if any suspicious purchases have been made. We could even find out if there is any one region of the world where most of them can be found since that would point to a possible location for the group's base of operations."

"Quite right! If you cannot find the Children, simply find what they will need and use that to locate them." Mister Midget said, sounding quite pleased at G-Man's train of thought. "With luck we will be able to find them before their fated battle with the Ever-Living-One and ask them what they know. Hopefully we will be able to reduce the expected level of destruction to something more tolerable for all concerned."

"Then there is the third line: 'The King, the one that Sees, shall find his Trinity of Companions, In new Forms, yet Same Souls,'" Miss Hot'n'Smart said, laying out the next bit of nonsense that SO didn't involve him. "This would imply that the King of Light had three companions in the past, that they died, possibly along with him, and that they have since been reincarnated into new forms. Whether this means something simple as new faces, something moderate as different genders or something great like a new species, there's no way of knowing."

"Reincarnation is a tricky bit of business. In almost all cases the soul of the deceased drinks from the river Lethe in the afterlife to erase their memories so that when they are reborn they are unburdened by the past life," Mister Midget said, bringing up a hand to scratch his chin. "It does not always work perfectly and there are various spells and potions that can be used to retrieve past life memories, but in this case the reborn companions will likely not remember their King. At most they might retain one defining characteristic from their past life and incorporate it into whoever or whatever they are now. If in a past life someone was unflinchingly loyal, then in their current life they might display the same degree of loyalty. If they were thrill seekers in a past life then they might be engaged in activities that can induce a similar sensation."

"So we draw up a list of things royal bodyguards do or how they act and see if anyone stands out." Buffy said, trying to get more involved in the discussion.

"Despite what you might have seen on television or in the movies, Buffy, royal bodyguards are not so unique with their traits that a reincarnated one will be easy to locate," Giles said with a bit of disappointment in his former charge. "Loyalty, devotion, bravery, cunning and many other attributes make up the soul of someone who has chosen to guard another's life even at the cost of their own. There are certainly millions of people the world over who possess these traits."

"True, but if Xander is the King of Light in the prophecy and he does go on a journey that results in him finding them, then I believe it's safe to assume that they are somewhere in North America," British Willow said, sounding like she was devising other ways to narrow down the search area. "After all, it would require someone with significant wealth and connections to travel the entire world and, if time is a factor, then limiting the search to North America is more feasible."

"Soooo… needle meet haystack?" he asked, figuring that this all meant that he'd probably wind up stumbling over these people by accident.

"Most likely," British Willow replied with a nod. "The only way I can see the odds improving would be to inspire them to find you. There has been past precedent wherein a soul, exposed to an artifact it had a strong connection to in its previous life, has remembered who or what it used to be if only in part. If we can find such an artifact and spread its image across enough venues in combination with Sunnydale's location they might come to us."

"Or you might just wind up getting anyone who just wants the artifact. People can be greedy, ya know?" he pointed out, easily imagining thieves, antique collectors or evil mojo users coming to Sunnydale then.

"Hmmm… you might be right. Still, if we do what we can to ensure the trigger is something common or valuable only to someone who has the desired past life, then screening out the extra arrivals should be simple enough." British Willow said, not sounding all that worried.

Kinda like how California Willow did when she was sure that she had the right solution.

Like that stupid soul curse she was determined to cast prior to last summer.

 _Looks like I'll have to start making another contingency plan,_ he thought with a mental groan. _The big brains always trip over the little details._

"The next line in the prophecy is: 'Through Loss, the path to his Oracle and Healing will be clear. By his hands and the Five Great Spirits shall be Awakened.'" Willow said, taking her turn in directing the conversation. "Not liking the sound of this one."

"I will admit it's a bit more ominous that I would prefer but it is not necessarily dire," G-Man said, taking a moment to clean his glasses. "There are many forms 'loss' can take, from the safest sort to the most tragic. It could simply mean that Xander will lose a competition of some sort."

"But it could also mean that one of us will…" Willow said, looking more worried by the second.

"Don't worry, Willow! This whole prophecy is garbage, so nothing'll happen. You'll see," he said, ninety-nine percent sure of what he was saying.

The one percent wouldn't go away no matter how hard he tried because of his past experience with things not going his way.

"As for the term 'Oracle', this would seem to be as much an official title as it is an indication of the being's abilities. According to conventional definitions an Oracle is a priest or priestess acting as a medium through whom advice or prophecy was sought from the gods," Giles said, sounding to be half deep in thought. "Assuming that the Oracle in the prophecy is of the Light as well, we can dismiss those belonging to the demonic races or cults that favor death and destruction."

"That will certainly decrease the number we will have to research, Mister Giles, but I believe that you are overlooking a crucial fact," Missus Bug-Eyes said ominously. "What if the gods that send this Oracle their visions of the future are the same Five Great Spirits mentioned in the prophecy? While it is possible that they are known deities who fell into a slumber when the number of worshippers became too few, there is also the possibility that the Oracle answers to gods completely unknown to us."

"While I will admit that that is a possibility, Professor Trelawney, I do not believe it likely," G-man said, not confident in that possibility. "Gods draw power from their places of power and the worship of mortals. This is a fact. There is even evidence to suggest that the forms they take are greatly influenced by the mortals who worship them. The likelihood of there being even one deity of Earth changing power that has managed to remain unknown is mind bogglingly unlikely. Five such deities? It would take the aid of the Almighty Creator for so many to retain such power and yet remain completely unknown to the world."

"And if five gods of Earth-changing power HAVE been getting the help of THE God in staying under the radar?" he asked, figuring there'd be no harm in asking.

"Well…then…" Giles replied as his British composure began to falter somewhat. "…Then they must either be so terribly evil that it took the power of the Almighty himself to seal them away or they were kept hidden for a very important maneuver against the forces of darkness."

For the sake of his sanity and his nerves, he'd just be thinking that God kept the five deities hidden to help the good guys rather than to keep the bad guys from getting some powerful help.

"From the way that the prophecy is worded, it sounds as though the Oracle will guide Xander to these Five Great Spirits as well as perhaps grant him greater access to his past life memories." British Willow pointed out, proving to be quite insightful.

"Assuming, though, that the Oracle is only a Seer rather than a powerful user of magic that would imply that the way to where each of these slumbering gods is reachable by mortals," Mister Midget said, looking thoughtful. "Albeit with numerous traps, puzzles and mazes between the entrance and them in order to ensure that only the desired people or the extremely gifted reach them. The Oracle's purpose is likely to provide the King with clues to properly navigate the defenses protecting the chamber within which the deity slumbers."

"Will all those defenses just kick out the ones who choose wrong or will they…you know…die?" Willow asked, bringing up the fate of most people who tried to make it through to protected chambers.

At least in popular forms of fiction that's what happened to them.

"Hard to say but I fear it would be the latter," Giles replied, showing that he didn't like the possibility either. "Allowing one who has tried to make it past the defenses to leave alive would only allow knowledge of the defenses to be passed on, thus increasing the likelihood of the next one to attempt entry succeeding. If it is indeed the intent of the Almighty to keep these Five Great Spirits secret until this King of Light finds them, then a place with a reputation of no one leaving would be best."

The more he was hearing about what this supposed 'King of Light' was supposed to do, the more he wanted no part of it. Earth-changing battles, unknown gods and a battle big enough that some maps might need to be redrawn in the aftermath did not a good time make in his opinion. Sure, he knew that all this talking was simply meant to understand the prophecy and that there was every chance it could be proven to be a big pile of crap but there was also the possibility that it wouldn't be crap. There was a chance that this prophecy was as real as those things got and that the future was going to get a lot more chaotic.

More chaotic and completely centered on him either to save the day or fail, likely to the death of everybody.

No pressure, right?

"What does it mean when it says Xander'll choose a new Flame Lord?" Willow asked, sounding a confused as to how such a thing could happen.

"Well, as you have heard, the perceptions of a God's worshipper can greatly affect what form they will take. It is possible that the previous Flame Lord is the weakest of the five deities and has therefore lost its previous form," Giles replied, sounding quite logical. "It is possible that, upon coming into contact with the 'King of Light', the monarch's perceptions of what a Flame Lord should look like will act as a catalyst of sorts, thus in a manner of speaking will act as the 'choice'."

"And the thirteen holy weapons?" Buffy asked, predictably being attracted to the shiny yet deadly.

"Most likely referring to weapons imbued with a strong holy attribute either due to the materials used in their construction or infused into them by their creator," British Willow replied, sounding like she had some knowledge on the matter. "It is also possible that the prophecy might simply refer to weapons often mentioned in legend as being holy due to the reputations of the people who wielded them or the cause they were used in. However, given the tone set by the prophecy so far, I think it's safe to assume that the weapons have at least one impressive magical attribute."

"So we're talking about stuff like Excalibur?" he asked even though he figured that that had to be it.

"Exactly," British Willow replied with a strong nod, indicating she shared his opinion.

Him. Wielding the same sword Excalibur that was once owned by King Arthur of Camelot.

A part of him was almost tempted to see this whole mess as just one big joke at his expense but for the life of him he couldn't think of a single intelligent being that'd be willing to go through all this, whether they hated him or just wanted a few good laughs. The more the people in the room expanded upon the words of the prophecy, the more ammunition he was given to confirm that it couldn't possibly be referring to him or was a complete lie to begin with. Even if the prophecy had been about Buffy or Willow, he would've had a bit of trouble believing that it'd come to pass. Buffy might be the Slayer and Willow the smartest girl he knew, but even they would be hopelessly out of their depth in dealing with something that had such far reaching ramifications. As a group they were barely managing to keep a lid on the darkness that lived in Sunnydale, despite some apocalypse averting to their credit.

Put anything more difficult and important on their plates, they'd try but they'd fail just the same.

"The fact that all thirteen need to be gathered before this King of Light can face the Ever-Living-One makes you think that either these weapons have weakened over time or the one they're meant to kill is just that strong," Miss Hot'n'Smart said, bringing the tension level back up. "In most tales all it takes to slay an evil being is one or two holy weapons. For a full thirteen to be required, it puts the Ever-Living-One on a level I don't think anyone's ever seen before."

"So I'm basically going to be fighting the Devil?" he asked since in his mind the only being evil on the level being proposed was the ruler of hell Satan himself.

"Don't be ridiculous!" British Willow exclaimed in a manner that made it clear she couldn't believe he'd spoke aloud such a stupid question. "Every record and mention of Lucifer makes it clear that none but the Almighty himself would be capable of killing the ruler of Hell. No, we're dealing with something or someone much weaker and that an empowered mortal would stand a decent enough chance at defeating."

"Well excuuussee ME, princess smarty pants!" he exclaimed, coping with the pressure he was under in the usual manner when an idea of his got shot down by someone who saw themselves as better than him, "But considering the crap we're combing through trying to figure out what the hell is going on, Satan's as good a possible big bad as anyone else! Assuming anything happens at all. In fact I don't know why I'm sticking around here listening to this! Listening to Harmony talking about the latest gossip making the rounds would be a better way to spend my time than this! I'm outta here!"

With that he shoved his way past Giles' Brit guests and left the library, intent on finding someplace that still made sense. He'd come back later and hopefully they'd all have a good laugh at each other for believing such a ridiculous, long winded rambling before moving onto actually getting the blasted ring off of his blasted finger!

 _Old man Isaac had better hope we don't see each other anytime soon or I'll punch him right on his ass!_

 _ **Willow's POV**_

"Did… did I say something I shouldn't have?" the girl with the curly brunette hair asked, sounding like she hadn't seen Xander's outburst then departure coming.

"Gee! Ya think?" Buffy exclaimed in anger at the member of the group Giles had invited to Sunnydale to help.

As much as she wanted to join the blonde Slayer on the whole 'YOU IDIOT' bandwagon, the newcomers didn't know anything about the Scoobies, much less what topics were off limits. In Xander's case it was any less than constructive criticism or slights to his intelligence. While most of the time her best friend could just let the words roll off him or find a way to turn it right back at the person who'd spoken them, this was a unique set of circumstances. Taking in the entire prophecy from beginning to end… if Xander really was the one fated to become this King of Light, then that was an entire planet of pressure put upon her childhood friend.

For all the things the Scoobies had managed to accomplish since they'd been founded, this was as far above their usual job as President of the United States was above a common restaurant waiter.

Whenever they'd patrolled, whenever they worked together to overcome the latest threat, they never thought they were saving anything or anyone other than the town around them along with the people in it. They were just teenagers, after all, and she was pretty sure that if the Scoobies fully comprehended the scope of their actions and all the consequences of their actions, regardless of whether they won or lost, they'd be paralyzed by fear and indecision. On an instinctive level they'd all recognized this and suppressed the knowledge to the point where all that was left was what they, on some level, knew they could handle. Giles probably recognized this and therefore had done nothing to enlighten them about the grandness of the stage they were striding upon, save in moments where a certain degree of seriousness was required.

To be told more or less point blank by strangers that he was destined for a future greater and more crucial than anything else been too much for her best friend.

"Xander… no one's really had any expectations of him. Not of who he is or what he might do in the future," she said, doing her best to reveal the truth while also keeping any personal facts to herself. "I mean, I always thought that with some hard work he'd be able to get a great job but everyone else… they think he'll be lucky to get ANY job at all that isn't minimum wage."

She paused for a few minutes so that the newcomers could understand and get a feel for the sort of world Xander had been living in for most of his life.

"It's gotten easier for him since Buffy came. Helping her fight demons and vampires has him thinking that maybe there's more to who he is and what he's capable of than everyone else thinks," she said, feeling a little sorry that she and Buffy were considering limiting his slayage involvement, if only for a moment. "But it's been like baby steps for him, advancing forward little by little, at a pace he can handle. To have some prophecy come out of nowhere telling him he has to become a king of legend and basically save the world from a continent destroying evil is like going from lifting a weight your body can handle to having a mountain dropped on your head."

"I suppose it would be rather overwhelming to be suddenly confronted with a future like this," the bushy brunette said, sounding sincerely sorry about what she'd done. "However, as much as it would be nice to ease him into things, we have no idea when the events foretold will come to pass. It could be as soon as tomorrow for all we know."

"While I will not say it is impossible that the foretold events to happen tomorrow, I do not believe it likely, Miss Granger," Sybil said, sounding like she knew what she was talking about. "From the very first day that I first glimpsed the future with my Inner Eye there has always been enough time to prepare for the events I saw. Granted, sometimes I only just had enough time to prepare but it has never been so soon so as to leave me helpless."

"Even if we do have time to prepare, it is clear that Xander is the central point of this prophecy," Miss Granger said, sounding certain of her viewpoint. "What he does or does not do will have profound consequences with regards to the being called the 'Ever-Living-One' and the destruction done to the Earth."

"Prophecies are way creepy but they can't be too hard to take on," Buffy said, sounding like she was sure they could win without too much trouble. "Remember the prophecy that said the Master would kill me at the end of the first year? Obviously someone screwed up writing the thing down, 'cause I'm still here and VERY MUCH alive."

"What exactly was the wording of the prophecy?" Miss Granger asked, sounding intrigued by the news.

"I do not recall the precise wording but it was a prophecy written in the Pergamum Codex. It basically stated that Buffy would go and confront the Master of the Aurelius clan of vampires and die," Giles replied, taking his glasses off to clean them and cope with the uncomfortable topic. "However Xander refused to accept that Buffy would die and followed Angel down into the Master's lair. They found her dead, a combination of blood loss and drowning, but fortunately through the use of CPR they were able to revive her."

"Then technically it could be said that the prophecy was fulfilled as it was written," Miss Granger said, nodding in understanding. "After all, it didn't say that she would remain dead. Given this fact, it only reinforces the fact that genuine prophecies are not to be taken lightly. Even if there are ways to manipulate the events mentioned to your advantage to a certain degree, they key points cannot be altered. The Children of Thundara will clash with the Ever-Living-One and, judging by the wording, it will not be them that finally put an end to the threat but Xander. If he refuses to accept this fact, who knows how long the destruction will go on for before coming to an end."

"As grim a prediction as it is, I must concede that it must be Xander who will resolve the crisis," Giles said, sounding quite serious. "There have been many historical records of various people who attempted to reject their prophesied fates only to make matters worse and even a few wherein their rejection brought about the very end they sought to avoid. I suspect the most we will be able to do is handle the lesser problems that crop up, so as to allow Xander to focus the entirety of his attention on what he must do."

"Well, before all that, we need to get Xander out of the funk he's in," she said, pushing her chair back before getting up out of it. "I'll go talk with him."

"Perhaps I should be the one to talk with him," Miss Granger said, sounding somewhat remorseful over what she'd said earlier. "I was the one that misspoke before and caused him to storm off like he did."

"No. If you showed up he'd just get angry again," she said, shaking her head. "Even Cordy knows to avoid him after crossing the line with their war of words. At least with me he'll probably think about what I say."

"He holds a grudge?" Miss Granger asked, like she was trying to solve a riddle.

"Like you wouldn't believe!" she replied, remembering quite a few fellow students that had wronged Xander three years ago and her best friend STILL hadn't forgiven them.

Two of the three had even turned over a new leaf and had bettered themselves to the point where she was willing to give them a second chance.

Not Xander.

Cordy and the Cordettes would become real nuns of their own free will before that'd happen.

"Very well. The rest of us will follow up on our other leads in the meantime," Miss Granger said, rescinding her offer to speak with Xander.

Nodding she left the library before beginning to think on where he might've gone to fume. The school was mostly empty since it was the weekend, with only a handful of teachers and the janitor likely being in the building. However, since she didn't think that Xander would risk bumping into Snyder even by chance, he'd go to someplace out of the way that the troll would never go to. There was only one place she could think of on school property that fit the bill and it was oddly fitting since she knew of a few times in the past he'd gone to similar places when upset.

Navigating through the hallways, it didn't take her long to find the stairs that led up to the roof and, once she climbed them, she exited out onto the roof. From there it was easy as pie to find Xander where he was sitting just staring out at Sunnydale but not really 'seeing' anything. Walking up to him, she said nothing and instead just sat down next to him, looking in the same direction, letting him decide whether they talked or just took comfort in each other's company. Neither of them had the best home life, even if she was more optimistic about hers than Xander was. She'd met Tony and Jessica Harris precisely once and that was enough to convince her never to interact with them again unless she absolutely had to.

"It's impossible, Willow," Xander said calmly for the most part but with a light flavor of defeated certainty. "All…THAT…I can't do that."

THAT was one of the reasons why she didn't like Xander's parents.

Parents were supposed to be loving and nurturing when it came to their kids but neither of her best friend's parents could have either attribute attached to them by any stretch of the imagination. Sure, hers spent most of their time away at work but they called regularly and did their best to make it home for the big holidays. Tony and Jessica… the most kindness Xander could expect from either of them was to be ignored in favor of something else. As a result her friend lacked confidence in himself and what he was capable of despite her best efforts to change that. It hadn't been until he'd learned of Buffy being the Slayer and joining her fight that things started improving. She'd been hurt a little that it'd taken someone else to finally get Xander to start thinking that there could be more to his life but, so long as it helped him get better, she was content to let it pass her by.

"How do you know unless you try?" she asked calmly yet honestly. "Does anyone really know what they're capable of until they actually try to do something?"

"Because I'm a nobody. Kings are just princes that got the torch passed to them by their dads and even before that they probably had all the best teachers telling them what's what from the time they were kids," he replied, just letting the words flow out of his mouth without any real thought. "They actually had kingdoms ready and waiting for them! They didn't have to build one up from scratch!"

"You're right but all kingdoms, all royal bloodlines, had to start somewhere," she said, keeping herself calm in the hopes that some of it'd rub off on him. "Look back far enough in any royal family's past and I'll bet you'll find they started out as leaders of a small community that grew over time as more and more people started trusting in them to steer them in the right direction."

"Yeah? And who in their right mind would follow a California boy who won't even make it to university thanks to his shoestring budget?" he asked, pointing out his dire financial straits.

"I would. You might be reckless and a little stupid sometimes but your heart's almost always in the right place," she replied, trying to make him see the good parts of himself.

"'Almost always'?" he asked, picking up on that little condition.

"No one's perfect," she replied, not wanting to make things more difficult by pointing out his jealousy towards Angel or any other boyfriend of Buffy's.

"People'll probably expect me to be if I agree to do this," he said, once more sinking back into negative thoughts. "After all, kings that screw up tend to get kicked off their thrones during the rebellions."

"That's just Hollywood talking, Xander," she said, knowing that things like that could only come from TV or movies. "You'd have to do something pretty awful to get them to literally kick you off your throne or rebel. It's more likely they'll just call you on your mistakes and ask you to step down as king."

"And I'd have NO problem with that!" he said, sounding like he might even try to fix it so that he did get removed from his position like that sooner rather than later. "Let someone else deal with the paperwork of running a kingdom."

 _There he goes again,_ she thought with a sigh. _Why can't he just have a little faith in himself?_

She knew the answer to that almost immediately.

Tony Harris and Jessica Harris.

She didn't know much about either of them, aside from her one meeting with them, but for Xander to think so little of himself, to assume failure right from the beginning, probably not a day'd gone by since he'd been born that he hadn't been stepped on, literally or vocally. Normally this'd eventually get the attention of child services and Xander's frequent trips to the hospital would've definitely triggered a visit, but this was Sunnyhell. Here the cops were either corrupt or incompetent, the hospital staff just did their jobs without speaking up and the high school had its own obituary section. With all that it was no wonder that it's no wonder that no one ever intervened with the abuse Xander must've suffered and it explained his self-image.

Still, it HAD to change or else he really would grow up to be just like Tony.

Bitter and angry and hateful with booze being the only thing that mattered.

"And if you're really the only one capable of saving the world and being king?" she asked, trying to nudge him into seeing the other side of things. "What then?"

"Then God's got to be pretty desperate if I'm the one that got tapped for the job," he replied, still not all that happy with the idea.

"That mean you're just going to give up?" she asked, deciding to get a little more confrontational. "Throw in the towel? Walk up to this Ever-Living-One and just say 'you win'?"

"No… not give up… just give up command to someone better," he replied with a slight shake of his head. "Someone with the skills and the know how to win. I'll do my part, fight as best I can to help whoever it turns out to be, but I'll let them call the shots. We'll have a better chance of winning that way."

"Then maybe your job's to rally the troops and get things this real King of Light needs," she said, a plan being devised in her head. "If the Ever-Living-One's really as powerful as Giles is making him out to be then it's going to take one big ass army to take him down, or at least keep the minions busy. You helped found the Scoobies, right? Building an army can't be too much different than that."

"It is basically just convincing people to work together and get ready for whatever they gotta do, right?" he asked, to which she responded with a nod. "I guess if I get serious and think things through I could get at least SOME people to sign on. Might have to leave a few things out, though. Make them think stuff without actually promising anything."

"No. An army based on lies and schemes isn't going to last," she said sternly with a shake of her head. "Just be honest with them. Let them know what's what and find a way to make them believe there's hope waiting for them at the finish line. That beating the Ever-Living-One is a very real possibility. The rest'll take care of itself."

"You make it sound so easy," he said, looking at her with a grin. "Why is that?"

"Because the little girl mistakes knowledge for wisdom," teplied a cocky British voice from behind them. "Reality isn't so kind, dear girl. If someone like him won't step up to claim his destiny then you'd best just slit your own throats right here."

Both she and Xander got to their feet and turned to face the unknown, only to find something they didn't expect.

Standing on the other side of the rooftop was a man dressed in clothes that only had a passing resemblance to anything they knew.

Long black jacket with white and gray trim, matching trousers, red scarf and a gray/white mantle before topping it all off with a black fedora.

The thing that strayed the most from the norm was a black wing-like… thing on his left arm that made her wonder if it'd just been tacked on as an afterthought.

That it was all being worn by a middle-aged man with red hair, amber eyes and a few days' worth of growth on his face only added to the oddness. Truthfully the thing that had her on edge the most, aside from the whole 'slit your own throats' bit, was the look in the man's eyes. The patronizing civility mixed with the vicious cruelty in those two eyes made her fearful. Unlike the vampires and the demons, though, she could see that this wasn't the same combination of emotions but rather a variation that was unequivocally human in nature. She had read history books, she remembered the stories her grandma and grandpa had told her about the Nazi camps, but even those examples did little to prepare her for what lay within this man's eyes.

Then, like she'd done a few times before, she turned to Xander to see what his reaction was and ask what he thought they should do…

…Only to find such an expression of vengeance, rage, on his face that you'd think he was staring at the vampire that took Jesse away from them.

And she found herself, just a little bit and only for a moment, afraid of what her own best friend might do next.


	3. A Chill Wind, A Darkening Sky

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the copyrighted materials contained herein. They are the rightful property of their respective creators and/or associated companies. I make no profit from this whatsoever and I have no intention of changing this in the future. I write because it's fun and because there are those who enjoy reading my stories. Therefore please no lawsuits or similar legal action please because I can promise you even if you bleed me financially dry it won't be enough to cover even half your legal fees.

* * *

 _ **Xander**_ _ **'**_ _ **s POV**_

A lot of people say that high school is a time for experimentation.

A time to try new things, ranging from dating, to sex, to sports, and while the first two had the potential to cause problems you could more or less avoid those pitfalls if you just used the head resting on your shoulders instead of the one dangling between your legs if you were a guy. However the one thing that seemed to pop up pretty often in just about any teenager's life was either booze or drugs, since both were excellent ways to forget your troubles for a while. Sure, there were people who partook of both just for experience's sake but the majority chose to use it as a problem solver or a problem avoidance method. However there were two very important things that made overindulging in either substance a bad idea.

First and foremost being the fact that no one thought straight when they were drunk or high and this could lead to doing things that you would not ordinarily have done. Best case scenario? You completely trashed your reputation to one degree or another and have to work on damage control to get things back on track. At the other end of the spectrum you did something to get you tossed in jail, with the judge later making sure you don't get to taste free air for ten to twenty years.

The second important thing was that the after effects of using either substance tended to be VERY unpleasant hangover symptoms that the smart people used as VERY good reasons not to sample either again. Tremors, elevated heart rate and mood swings were just three of the most common things people who drank or shot up could look forward to in the aftermath of their 'fun time'. Now the real idiots dealt with these unpleasant after effects by adding more fuel to the fire by drinking more booze or indulging in more drug use but that was a temporary fix at best. Sooner or later the person using one of these 'lovely' things would run out of money and be forced to suffer through the after effects no matter what.

What did this have to do with him right now?

Well he was currently going through an experience that seemed to be a combination of the immediate effects of a powerful hallucinogen and the bad parts of said drug wearing off at the same time.

In short: a contradiction that was knocking him for a loop.

Images, video clips and audio were assaulting his mind as he looked at the man standing across the roof from him and Willow.

An aged man in his early to middle sixties, wearing a black suit and cape combo, with a cane in his hand looking at him with fatherly love in his eyes.

 _Walk tall, my son._

A hotel room for some seaside resort with three people in the room, each having bonds of trust with each other and especially with him and all of them looking like they'd been struck dumb.

 _As treaty room tempers flared blasts lit the night sky. When the smoke about the Citadel cleared the king was found dead._

Pain, sorrow, grief and regret exploded within him like a dam had just had some holes put in it. The warm feeling of love, the bond of family that'd embodied the previous image, was obliterated, only to be replaced with emotions of a much greater potency as well as far less coherence.

But that didn't make sense!

He… he didn't know that other man, so WHY… why did he feel as though his heart had just been torn out by some vicious clawed demon?

Next came a chaotic scene of a city surrounded by a wall of water, a gigantic sea serpent flying through the air as easily as it should have water, and across a terrible expanse of open space he sees two people; one the man standing before him and Willow, and the other a blonde teenage girl in a white dress who, even amidst this chaos, takes his breath away with her beauty, and he knows without a doubt that he loves her with all his heart.

He feels fear at the sight of the two of them together, fear that the man will hurt his love, but try as he might to get to his feet so he could protect her he is unable to muster the strength. Indeed, the last time he'd felt so weak had been after a particularly bad night when Tony had spent the better part of an hour beating the crap out of him.

And then the pain and the grief came back with no drop in potency whatsoever as the man, in one fluid motion, thrust the business end of the dagger into his love's stomach.

It might as well have been into his stomach that the knife had cut into and, truthfully, he would've preferred that since it would've hurt less.

The image of the city being destroyed by water broke apart like it'd all been made of flower petals, only to be replaced by the sight of the young woman in a field of purple flowers. With no more than a thought he knew that it was not a physical person he was beholding but rather the young woman's spirit.

 _When the world falls down around you and hope is lost… when you find yourself alone amid a lightless place… look to the distance… know that I am there… and that I watch over you always. Farewell, dear Noctis._

Husband.

He knew that right then and there you could have replaced the familiar name of 'Noctis' with 'husband' and the blonde girl would have agreed wholeheartedly had destiny been kinder. Seeing the one that his heart claimed as his love sink ever deeper into the darkness, eventually fading from sight, he wanted to roar, SCREAM, in defiance of this unwanted future!

Sadly, so chaotic was his mind at the moment that it was all he could do just to remain standing, his eyes locked on the form of the man he was quickly coming to HATE.

The worst was yet to come, though, as the sight he beheld became that of an elaborate throne room, with stairs leading up to an impressive chair fit for a king. However the true magnificence the place might have conveyed was marred by a gaping hole in the wall caused by some kind of artillery strike and… the sick sight of three corpses hanging from the ceiling like cruel puppets. The aged man, the blonde girl that was his true love and a twenty-something guy he didn't recognize but for the stranger to be in such important company implied much about the man's character.

 _Oh, Noct_ _… How I have waited for this. Longer than you could ever know. Tonight, the dreams of the blood royal… come to an end._

The disrespect!

The DEFILEMENT!

THE CONDESCENSION!

All the evil this man had done and all that he had destroyed out of some centuries-long vendetta for misguided vengeance!

Emotions and instincts boiled up within him until they could be contained no longer.

"ARDYN!" he yelled, his voice filled with a hate so hot it felt like it could burn the entire world down with ease.

In a massive contradiction, action preceded thought as he found himself on the other side of the roof, a sword with wings about the hilt guard in his dominant hand, locked in combat with the evil man that'd suggested that he and Willow commit suicide. Ardyn had a sword as well and seemed to block the nearly instant attack.

"Ah! So you DO remember me!" Ardyn declared with mock happiness. "And here I thought you'd forgotten me during your little 'honeymoon' with the princess in the Beyond. I wonder if she will be as kind when next I visit her reborn self."

RAGE!

With the emotion newfound strength exploded into his sword arm, allowing him to send the monster flying off the roof of the school and into the parking lot below. For any normal human being such a fall would've been enough to seriously injure, if not kill them outright, but instead Ardyn simply got up off the ground like he was getting up from a light nap.

That settled it.

No way was that thing human and that meant killing it was not just permitted; it was encouraged.

With a body that seemed to know what to do even if he consciously did not, he surrendered to instinct and threw the sword that appeared out of nowhere at the monster shaped like a man. A blink before it would've connected with the weapon of his foe he found himself right behind it, with his fingers wrapped around its hilt. Once more the two weapons collided except that this time they didn't lock together but rather wound up pushing off of one another. He landed professionally, his legs knowing where they needed to be, but the moment half of his backward momentum vanished he pushed off intent on returning every speck of pain he now felt to the monstrous being tenfold.

Unfortunately the previous clash of blades would not be repeated since, instead of meeting him blow for blow, Ardyn had apparently chosen to weave and dance around every swing.

"Now, now! What would your precious Shield think of you swinging that thing like a drunken ruffian?" Ardyn asked chidingly even though a malicious smile was on his face.

"Shut up!" he growled even as he tried to use the fuel his rage gave him to make his body move faster and strike harder.

"No need to let court decorum leave you entirely, young prince," Ardyn said before throwing his own sword towards the streets of Sunnydale off the high school property. "Perhaps a little stroll through town will cool your head a bit. I'm sure there are quite a few pedestrians who'd love to see my sword up CLOSE."

In a blink of red light Ardyn vanished only to reappear next to his sword just before the weapon would've begun to lose its momentum and fallen to the ground.

More!

The man wanted to kill and destroy MORE!

 _Not on my watch!_ he thought with determined fury as he threw his weapon at the man, determined to end the monster's fun before it could even begin.

* * *

 _ **Sunnydale High School Library**_

 _ **Giles'**_ _ **POV**_

"Well I have contacted the best of my contacts that are not Council affiliated and asked them to investigate the leads we managed to deduce," he said as he exited his office, reassured now that they were beginning to make progress. "It will be a while before they get back to us with any information of significance but I trust that they will let us know shortly after they discover something."

"Then it would be best if I did likewise," Filius said from where he stood. "It's a pity MACUSA never extended its Floo network to Sunnydale. Without it I'll have to apparate to Los Angeles to contact the right people."

"Yes, well, magic is somewhat more volatile here on the Hellmouth," he said, his mind conceiving of possible outcomes of mixing Floo magic with the energies of Boca Del Infero. "I would rather not find out how well it would mix with such potent magic."

"Too true. There's a reason sane magic users avoid Hellmouths rather than flock towards them," Filius said, sounding like he knew of a few wizards and witches who hadn't been sane.

"What do you mean?" Buffy asked from her chair, having been quietly observing for the last while.

"Simply put, Buffy, while the Hellmouth can covertly influence most who live upon it, magic users tend to be afflicted quicker and more seriously than others," he replied, remembering what he'd been taught during his training. "Think of it like putting a recovering alcoholic in a brewery as opposed to someone who has never sipped so much as a single beer in their lives. It would be that much harder for a regular practitioner of magic to resist the infernal energies of the Hellmouth than an ordinary person."

"So are you guys gonna…?" Buffy asked, looking at Filius and the ladies he'd brought with them.

"Not to worry, Miss Summers," Filius replied with a reassuring smile. "It takes a few weeks of exposure to a Hellmouth's energies before even the smallest signs of corruption begin to manifest. While I fully intend to provide as much aid as I can to young Xander, I am not so foolish to as to tempt fate by pushing my luck."

Also there was the fact that most studies on Hellmouth corruption indicated that continuous contact with the hell energies was required to corrupt a witch or wizard. If they left even for a few days, any dark energy that might've entered their systems would bleed off quickly, returning them to normal and forcing the Hellmouth to start its work anew should the magic user return. Considering all the people they had to contact and the probability that they'd have to go speak to some of these people in person and he doubted they had anything to worry about.

"GILES! BIG TROUBLE!" Willow yelled after charging through the library doors, a look of shock and fear on her face in a fluctuating ratio tipping one way then the other.

"Willow? What's wrong?" Buffy asked, instantly on edge with the manner of her friend's arrival and the expression on the redhead's face.

"XanderandIweretalkingontheroofbutthenthisguyshowedupandsaidweshouldustkillourselvesandthenXandergotREALLYpissedand-" Willow replied at a rate of speed that made it so that everyone else only caught a fifth of the words spoken.

"Willow! Please slow down!" he said loudly to snap her out of her babbling. "Now in one sentence please tell us what's going on."

"Some guy showed up and now Xander's fighting him with magic," Willow said after taking a few deep breaths to calm herself.

"WHAT!?" Buffy exclaimed in shock and a bit of anger before moving towards the weapons cage. "That idiot! He gets some fancy bling and a prophecy and suddenly he thinks he can fight a baddie!"

"What do you mean he fought with magic?" he asked Willow, deciding to focus on one of the more important developments.

"He made a sword appear in a flash of light and after he threw it at the creepy guy he teleported to it just before it reached the guy," she replied, sounding quite worried for her friend. "He was so angry, Giles. I've only seen him that angry once before."

"When?" Buffy asked, standing before the open weapons cabinet.

"The morning after he staked Jesse," Willow replied at just above a whisper.

While the lad had looked relatively composed the day after the Harvest, he'd always suspected that it was just a front, a coping mechanism, for what was truly going on in the teenager's head. No one could go through that sort of loss and not be emotionally compromised by it. However he'd presumed it was something manageable since Xander hadn't shown any cracks in his upbeat façade in his presence, meaning his willpower was sufficient to keep it under control.

Now, however, he was beginning to think that perhaps the reason why it'd been under control by the time the lad arrived at school was because a sufficient amount of fury had been vented so as to make it controllable. If Xander was right now in the grip of a fury that was not yet weak enough that it could be brought under control then he feared for the boy's safety. It was a basic tenet of combat that fighting while emotionally compromised by anger or fear was the same as handing your opponent victory on a silver platter. Both emotions made your movements obvious to your opponent while it also clouded your mind enough that you couldn't think up anything more than very basic strategies.

Only with a calm mind, with emotions under control, could one properly evaluate a combat situation and choose the right course of action.

True, when one was in the thick of things, that was rather difficult, but that was why you went through training in the first place. Not just to master your weapons but also to master yourself.

"We had best go to his aid before he gets in over his head," he said, moving to join Buffy by the weapon's cage. "If he cannot keep a calm mind then it is only a matter of time before this unknown man exploits a critical flaw in Xander's defense."

"We will accompany you, however I am afraid that you will have to do the majority of the fighting," Filius said, sounding somewhat sorry. "The permits I acquired for the purpose of the visit only permit using magic for the purposes of research and instruction, not combat."

"Then what good'll you four be?" Buffy asked, sounding like some of her bitterness regarding the Council's lack of support rub off on Filius' group.

"We might not be able to intervene directly but we should be able to provide analysis of the enemy's abilities, as well as provide advice on how to defeat him," Filius replied, not sounding offended in the least. "Also this will provide us with an opportunity to study Xander's magic and learn more about its nature. With such knowledge we might be able to look for references of similar magic elsewhere in the world indicating the locations of the Holy Weapons or the five gods of Earth."

"Not all aid is given with fists or weapons, Buffy," he said, trying to make his former charge see reason. "Sometimes a keen eye and a sharp mind can be even more helpful."

To this Buffy just sighed, nodded and went back to picking out weapons.

As soon as the rest of them had in hand the minimum they'd need to go to Xander's aid they set out and, upon exiting the school, they had little trouble determining which direction to go.

It was a testament to how angry and single minded the young man was that they could hear the clanging of blades and the destruction caused by the weapons when they struck something else. Running as swiftly as he could manage given his age, he moved with the group towards the noise and a minute later when they cleared a corner he beheld something he never thought he'd see.

Moving with speed, strength and savagery was Xander, utilizing a form of magic he'd never seen before. At first glance it definitely looked as though it was one that embodied holy light, examples of which he'd seen in the past, but upon closer inspection he could see bits of what could only be described as transparent crystal. These bits and pieces never lingered longer than the light that they gave off but he unquestionably saw them just the same. It was odd because, in all the examples of holy light he'd witnessed in the past, there had never been a crystal element mixed in with it. When added to the particulars of how Xander was using this mixture at the start, as well as at the end, of what could only be called teleportation, it was most definitely one of a kind.

"My word!" Filius exclaimed upon seeing the same sight.

Indeed the reactions were pretty much along the same vector for everyone as they witnessed Xander repeatedly clash with a man in a long black jacket. Using the same skills of evaluation that he employed whenever he'd observed Buffy fighting a vampire or a demon, he could easily tell that the unknown man was just toying with Xander. For all the ferocity and speed the young man was displaying, there was about as much skill in each swing as one might expect from a biker using a baseball bat. Clearly whatever had sparked such potent fury in the student had buried what little tactical thinking the teenager possessed.

 _If this was how bad Xander was the morning after Jesse's death, then I can only be grateful that Willow was not accidentally harmed,_ he thought as he began to try and devise ways of ending this confrontation.

Sadly, with how fast paced the fighting was, he knew for a fact that none save a Slayer would be able to insert themselves into the middle of the two without getting hurt. However, while Buffy would be able to block one blade when she placed herself in between the two, he did not think she would be able to block two even if she were provided with a second weapon. He had no idea how strong the unknown man's blows were and, while Buffy could likely block Xander's attacks, the ability to teleport gave the young man's movements an element of unpredictability. The young man could only teleport in a straight line consistent with where he threw his sword and, if Willow was correct, the teenager had conjured the weapon out of thin air. If that was indeed the case then it was possible Xander could simply banish the blade when Buffy blocked it, throwing her off balance, then summon it again a moment later to throw at the unknown man.

 _We need to target the fighters themselves rather than their weapons,_ he thought narrowing down the list of possibilities.

It was then that the numbers issue he was having difficulty getting past resolved itself in the form of approaching boot steps that were revealed to belong to none other than Faith.

"Yo G! What the fuck's going on?" Faith asked, coming to a stop beside them. "Why's X lookin' to slice that old guy up?"

"I am afraid the particulars have not been deduced yet," he replied, feeling more confident with a second Slayer present. "However if we can get the two of them to stop fighting, we can ask them."

"And we do that how?" Buffy asked, pulling her gaze away from the fight to look at him as well as Faith.

"Simple. Buffy, you get close and physically restrain Xander. Keep in mind that he apparently needs to throw his chosen weapon to teleport. Do not let him. Faith, I want you to keep the gentlemen over there restrained. Use however much force you think you will need but be careful. We do not know what his abilities are, so do not take any chances."

"On it," Buffy said before running towards Xander.

"Five by five, G!" Faith said, sprinting towards the unknown man.

Watching events unfold, he could see immediately that while Xander had never possessed the ability to conjure weapons or use them as a method of teleportation, the young man was wielding the magic as though he'd been using it all his life. It was making it difficult for Buffy to pin the lad down but fortunately for her the lines of teleportation were fairly straightforward, thus making them predictable. On her third try she successfully managed to grab him by the sword arm before quickly twisting it behind him while also grabbing the other arm.

"Take a chill pill, Xander!" she said as the man furiously tried to break her grip in vain. "Tell us what's going on!"

"Fucker needs to DIE!" Xander explained, apparently too mad to realize that he had no chance of breaking his former charge's grip.

Looking over to Faith, he was able to clearly see the difference between a fighter operating with a clear mind versus one consumed by rage given that the unknown man was expertly evading the Boston Slayer. The young woman's unpredictability served her well up to a point in that it was not as obvious as Xander's movements had been, but the stranger's level of experience proved to be superior in this case.

"Well, this is certainly a refreshing change of pace!" the stranger said with a condescending British accent. "Normally it's the man who cuts in on a dance. However for one as ravishing as you, I suppose I can make an exception."

"Nice try but old guys don't do a thing for me," Faith said even as she redoubled her efforts to restrain him. "Give up or get fucked up."

"Now where would the fun in that be?" the man asked as he continued to side step and spin out of the young woman's reach.

"You want fun? I'll show you a good time!" Faith said before she began employing moves that looked to be almost entirely made up and overly flashy.

The fact that he did not see a single fumble implied that she had at least practiced them to the point where there were no embarrassing slip ups but their effectiveness varied. In some cases they almost succeeded in hitting the man but in other cases they missed by almost a full foot. This went on for several minutes before the stranger got tired of dancing and manifested a new ability, that of a dark mass of mist that shot from his hand to knock Faith clear off her feet. When she didn't recover swiftly like a Slayer should he knew that there was more to the mist than simple concussive force. Poison? Toxin? Some sort of demonic curse? He had no way of knowing without mystically examining her.

"Well, you are certainly full of energy, little miss, but sadly parlor tricks can only hold my attention for so long," the stranger said as he strode past a woozy, incoherent Faith. "Perhaps your elder sister Slayer will prove more entertaining."

 _Please tell me she isn't going to-!_ he thought before his concern became reality.

Namely Buffy throwing Xander behind her before charging the magic user head on, unsheathing the katana she'd taken from the weapon's cage.

 _I must work harder to impress upon her the need to think before one acts,_ he thought with a grimace as he watched her clash blades with the sorcerer. _Honestly, she is far too easily provoked!_

However, while Buffy's skill with a blade was proving to be more skilled than Xander's tumultuous tirade, her lack of dedication to training was showing. For as long as he'd been her Watcher, he'd tried his best to train her, to raise her skills above the instinctive prowess that all Slayers had, but he could not say that he had been completely successful. The girl was incredibly willful, determined to maintain some semblance of a normal life in spite of her Calling, and only trained he wagered to earn a respite from his regular comments about the necessity of it all. It was not an ideal compromise but he knew it'd get better results than attempting to force training on her. Choice, as she was so fond of pointing out, was something that'd been taken from her grasp by being chosen to be the Slayer and it was something she would not react well to being stolen from her any further.

"My… what a graceful little thing you are. Not as primal as the other one. More controlled," the man commented as he met Buffy's blade with his own. "But then again that's what those old men on the other side of the ocean like, isn't it. A nice, obedient, PET."

"I am no one's PET!" Buffy growled as she adjusted her tactics in an effort to inspire fear in her foe; lightning fast strikes with much power behind them mixed with feints as well as parries in order to increase the likelihood of a blow landing.

For a moment this seemed to turn the tide as the man appeared to be putting more effort, more thought, into every move, whether it was offense or defense. However it was when out of nowhere the man's blade vanished, thus throwing Buffy off balance, that he realized that it'd all been a trap. Before he could call out to warn his former charge a smaller blade appeared in the stranger's hand before it was thrust into the teenage Slayer's stomach, then viciously torn out.

"Well, you're certainly pretty to look at but not a great deal behind those eyes of yours, is there?" the man mocked before raising his eyes to look at Buffy. "Oh prince? It seems your hero's in a bit of a pickle! Do hurry up before I get bored!"

Needless to say when Xander finished recovering from Buffy's throw and saw that both his 'hero' and Faith were down, he was quick to answer the man's challenge. However in a move that shocked many, the response did not come in the form of a thrown blade and teleportation, but rather a thrusting of the hand the ring was on before another spectacle was released.

In the blink of an eye a bolt of what could only be described as lightning leapt across the empty air and slammed into the chest of the unknown man, sending the stranger flying through the air.

While not as potent as one conjured by nature, the bolt of electricity was nonetheless impressive but what was even more surprising was what came next. With only a bit of strain and pain the stranger got back to his feet none the worse for wear, albeit with some scorch marks on the chest area of his shirt. He had seen several examples of spells capable of conjuring similar attacks and the ones that didn't do considerable damage to the target often succeeded in punching through them entirely.

"Well… that was a LITTLE better, prince," the man commented while making a show of dusting himself off. "However I seem to recall that ring giving its wearer a little more power than that. I guess it really hasn't accepted you as its new owner after all. Such a pity!"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Xander yelled before throwing his sword at the stranger and once more teleporting to catch up with it.

 _It's no good,_ he thought as he prepared to cast one of the few illusionary spells that required only a few seconds preparation. _He_ _'s thinking with his emotions not his head. If this man is truly disappointed in Xander then he will likely end the fight now, though whether it will be fatal or simply painful I cannot say._

That was why when he cast his illusion he'd use it as cover to render Xander unconscious and then withdraw to the library where they would be marginally safer. That was, after all, where the majority of his books, ingredients and artifacts were stored. With any luck the illusion he would cast would confuse and delay the stranger long enough for a respectable defense to be erected. If so then, given the man's waning interest in Xander, it could very well end the situation immediately.

Given that they still had yet to deal with the Order of the Black Dagger, he greatly hoped that this new threat would indeed just go away now that he was no longer interested in his prey.

However it was just as Xander reappeared and he expected the blades to clash once more that yet another surprise was provided but this was not a welcome one.

In the blink of an eye, almost literally, the stranger was gone and in his place was a man in his late forties with short blonde hair wearing an ordinary looking grey business suit. As a result, though, the head of steam that Xander had built up combined with the obvious lack of preparation on the part of the new arrival led to only one conclusion.

Xander bisecting the man from shoulder to hip with a single savage attack that implied that the sword was a great deal sharper than one would think, or the lad had received quite the strength boost from the adrenaline running through his body. Needless to say both the student and whoever the now mortally injured man were quite shocked by this, though it was a close call when it came to who was the more shocked of the two.

Shock turned to seriously nauseated for everyone when the two halves slid in opposite directions, allowing various internal organs to fall out along with the blood.

Needless to say he couldn't blame Xander for dropping to his hands and knees before vomiting whatever he'd eaten for breakfast.

"It's so different when it's not a demon, isn't it?" the man who was the focus of Xander's rage asked, strolling out from behind a nearby tree. "If it makes you feel any better, this 'upstanding citizen' shared certain ambitions with the dearly departed Iedolas. Then again, I could be mistaking ambitions for delusions. It's so easy to get the two confused."

While he would have preferred it not be at the expense of Xander's mind he was not allowing any new information to slip his notice. In the fight against the darkness knowledge had a power all its own and overconfident adversaries sometimes let information drop that should've been withheld.

Still, information was only good when you were able to make use of it so without further delay he cast the illusion spell on the antagonizing adversary. He waited a few moments but, when visible signs of distraction appeared, he strode forward to grab Xander, who looked to be partially recovered from the shock. He needn't even ask Filius and his group to go to Buffy and Faith to retrieve them, for he could already hear their footsteps moving in the right direction.

"Come, Xander! It is time we retreated," he said, hoisting the lad up to his feet before leading him in the general direction of the school.

Thankfully whatever rage had fueled the young man minutes ago had been knocked out of him by the accidental murder of the suited man. Aside from a slight feeling that he should know the person, he knew nothing else but he expected that given the gruesome sight someone would call the police. From there, assuming those fools worked up the strength to do their jobs, the corpse would be identified in short order and from there a press release would be issued to the local newspaper. Hopefully once Xander knew who he had slain the lad could begin to come to grips with it and formulate a means of atonement.

As the group moved further away, though, he had to wonder at the villainous stranger's comment about the man that'd been teleported to his death.

In his experience, men whose ambitions can be easily mistaken for delusions could be quite dangerous and, atop a Hellmouth, the danger only increased.

* * *

 _ **The Man Once Known As Ardyn Izunia'**_ _ **s POV**_

Not the best start but respectable enough that he would allow them a brief respite.

The walls holding back the memories of Noctis Lucis Caelum had been significantly compromised, allowing the first trickles of what once was to flow into the mind of Alexander LaVelle Harris. Time, sleep and some probing would do the rest. Not everything would come back, though, and he would likely need to pop up from time to time in order to keep the proverbial ball rolling, but he would not be alone.

No, there would be others who would rouse the slumbering fragments from the depths of the young man's soul. One such other was already close at hand and this pleased him.

More would appear in time, either he or his ally would make sure of that, until once more he could behold a king before him rather than an inept prince.

For now, though, he would have to wait.

 _Wait and deal with the horrid meal they insist is healthy,_ he thought with an honest grimace of distaste. _I swear not even a daemon would want to touch it._

With that he faded into dark mist leaving nothing but the body of the spectator he'd noticed watching the scuffle with dark designs towards young Alexander.

If he wasn't going to let that fool Iedolas Aldercapt interfere with his plans then this fool with dreams of seeing his decades-long plan through to completion wouldn't fare any better.

* * *

 _ **Sunnydale High School Library**_

 _ **Buffy'**_ _ **s POV**_

"How come you don't know stick mojo, Giles?" she asked as she watched Hermione heal up her stab wound in record time.

"The brand of magic Miss Granger and the others employ is something you must be born with, Buffy," Giles replied, emerging from his office. "Sadly the Giles family has never been blessed with the ability to perform 'stick mojo', so I have been forced to make do with more conventional magic."

That sucked but she couldn't really be mad at her ex-Watcher for something he had no control over. She just thought that if all her wounds over the past two years could've been fixed with a simple wave of a stick then it would've saved her an awful lot of grief. In any case, the nasty knife wound she'd gotten from that asshole with the terrible fashion sense was quickly being undone, saving her from having to explain it to her mother. The wound wasn't nasty enough for a hospital stay and could be tended to with the emergency medical bag Giles had in his office, but the sight of a bloody bandage would've set off her mother's overprotectiveness like a small nuke.

This way she could brush off the blood on her shirt as belonging to someone else and just get a brief 'be careful' speech from her mother later.

Looking through the office door to where Faith was resting, she felt a little worried since her sister Slayer was still pretty out of it. According to the not-demon midget man, the Boston Slayer wasn't in any danger and just needed time to get the lingering mee-asma out of her system. There'd been a bit of talk between the magic geeks about yooki something and ones that could look human, but a lot of it just did not compute. The most she got was that it was like poison and Faith's Slayerness would fight it off as long as the girl rested a good while.

"Now, Xander, perhaps you could tell us why you felt the urge to get into a fight with someone so clearly out of your league?" Giles asked, only inserting a light reprimand into his tone.

"I couldn't help it, Giles. When I saw him…I…I got these…flashes…" Xander replied, still sounding unbalanced mentally. "…Memories maybe? One after another and they hit me just as hard as Jesse's death did…no…HARDER."

Harder than his best friend since preschool's death? Was that possible? She'd been with him from the moment the vamp driving Jesse's body showed his true colors to just before they'd gone home after ruining The Master's little Harvest scheme. Both at the very beginning and at the very end Xander had been little more than a body running on autopilot, with the in between moments being a pendulum swinging from one emotion to another. If these flashes had set off a fury volcano like Willow claimed and kept going right through to when the gang caught up with him, then maybe he was telling the truth about this hitting harder. After learning that Jesse had been turned he hadn't gone into a murderous killing rage like he had with Mister Fashion Disaster.

"What did you see?" Giles asked, with everyone else in the room listening quietly, with rapt attention.

"A man outside a tall building like the Tokyo Metro government building, except more castley than that place," Xander replied, looking a bit haunted as he recalled the images that'd set him off. "He said to walk tall and…and…called me his son."

Okay… strike number two since the ring was obviously putting crazy stuff into her friend's head. She'd had the misfortune once to actually meet Mister Harris and that thing that barely LOOKED to be a man would never have said something encouraging to Xander.

"Then things switched to some seaside hotel room where this British sounding guy with glasses read an article in a newspaper about how a peace treaty signing went wrong and the king was found dead," Xander said, continuing his testimony of the flashes he'd gotten. "Gut punched doesn't even BEGIN to describe how I felt. It was more like someone had blasted a hole in my stomach big enough to fit your head through."

Giles looked like he was about to say something but when Xander raised his lowered gaze so that all could clearly see his eyes, no one could find the strength to speak, not with the pain they saw throbbing within those windows to the soul.

"The worst…the worst came next," Xander said, sounding as though he was finding it an order of magnitude harder to force the words out all of a sudden. "Buffy…I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't sympathize more with what you were going through with Angel last year and I completely understand now why you ran off to L.A. If you felt then like I did when the next flash hit me I would've run for the hills too…or worse."

No.

It couldn't be THAT!

"Xander…you mean?" Willow asked, her eyes beginning to glisten with unshed tears while her face grew into a look of sadness for her best friend.

"Yeah…the last flash was of young blonde woman, mid-twenties I think, sinking deeper into a lake or an ocean until the light couldn't reach her," Xander replied, sounding as though his heart was suffering more cracks just relating this to them. "She…she…I know this'll sound crazy but…I felt like she was THE ONE. Not just a possibility or the most likely candidate but THE ONE. The stuff she said…I get the feeling that fate was really twisting the knife in the both of us. We wanted to be together, we wanted to be happy, but fucking fate had different plans!"

"Oh Xander…" she gasped before getting out of the chair she'd been treated in to go to Xander's side and wrap him in a comforting hug.

Willow did likewise and together they did their best to convey their sympathy, as well as their resolve to help him through this whatever that might call for.

Well…maybe not WHATEVER it might call for but rather what could be considered within reason.

She knew that back in her old high school some girls thought that the best way to help a guy they were friends with get over his ex was to immediately pair him up with another girl. The idea, of course, was to distract the guy with a suitable new girlfriend and hopefully ensure that the two hit it off so well that the ex-girlfriend would be quickly forgotten. Nowadays, though, she knew that such a tactic would only work on especially shallow guys who were more interested in the physical aspects of dating instead of the emotional side of things.

Plus, while she was MOSTLY convinced that Xander no longer had a thing for her like he had their first year as friends, she couldn't ignore the whisper that indicated it might not be completely gone.

"Well…if this is what you experienced in so short a time, I can understand how emotionally compromised you must have been," Giles said once enough comforting had been done. "Given what I saw, however, I presume the stranger you were so intent on killing also appeared in one of your…flashes?"

"Yes," Xander growled with renewed hatred and vengefulness. "I know his name is Ardyn Izunia and that he was behind it all! The fall of Insomnia, the death of the man in the first flash AND delivering the final blow that killed HER! He was the one who orchestrated it all!"

"Couldn't this all be some sort of deception?" Cho asked, sounding like she was finding it all a bit overwhelming. "Or maybe the ring is putting these scenes into Xander's head in order to get him to use its power?"

"I don't think so," Hermione said with a shake of her head. "Even the quickest mind oriented magic requires a period of focused concentration in order to implant memories and emotions. Normally the quicker the job done, the less detailed the implant turns out to be. It's far more likely that our earlier theory, reincarnation, is the right answer."

"Only one problem with that," Xander said as the hug came to an end. "In the flashes I saw, tech that's either at the same level as ours or even further ahead. If it's reincarnation shouldn't I be seeing stuff a half century or more out of date?"

"Hmmm…perhaps someone from the future travelled back in time, lived and died, thus causing their soul to begin the cycle of reincarnation in the past," Hermione said, absorbing and evaluating the information before adjusting her theory. "If this person was old enough, it would fit with what's been determined about reincarnation. The memories you experienced were probably the first to surface due to their importance and the trauma involved, along with the appearance of someone from that lifetime. Now that your past life has begun to mingle with your present one, I'd imagine more memories will be coming in the days and weeks ahead."

"Fuck," Xander muttered, lowering his head again at the idea of getting hit with more shit like he had thus far.

She couldn't disagree with that sentiment.

If she'd been told that she'd be getting hit with messed up memories in the future, she wouldn't want any part of it either.

"Is there some way we can lock them back up?" she asked thinking that there was a better time for blasts from the past then staring down the barrel of a demon assault.

"Magic involving the mind is notoriously difficult and dangerous," Giles said, sounding like he'd rather not try it. "We could easily wind up doing more harm than good. Also it is entirely possible that these past incarnation memories are somehow crucial to him defeating the Ever-Living-One. Bottling them up could just make things worse."

"And them driving Xander nuts or making him lock up in the middle of a fight is better?" she asked, her mind already coming up with nightmare scenarios.

"No, but we can minimize the danger by making sure someone's watching his back and sticking close to him," Hermione replied, sounding like it wouldn't be too bad with a little forethought.

"An excellent idea, Miss Granger, but I'm afraid you're outside your jurisdiction for such important things," a woman's voice said in concert with the doors to the library opening up. "Mister Harris is, after all, an American citizen, and if he's indeed capable of performing magic then that puts him under our authority."

Everyone looked to the doors to see two people enter, one man and one woman, dressed in clothes that were almost perfectly like a federal agent, albeit with some differences, namely symbols as well as some fabric combos that she'd never seen before and hoped to never see on any store shelves. Ever.

"And you are?" Xander asked, sounding a little confrontational towards people acting like they were taking custody of a suspect or a witness.

"Aurors Picquery and Graves of the Magical Congress of the United States of America," Auror Picquery replied, sounding like she thought that all that made her the top dog in the room.

Boy was she in for a surprise.

* * *

 _ **Filius Flitwick**_ _ **'**_ _ **s POV**_

 _I was hoping that we would have more time,_ he thought with a mental grimace. _It would seem that my opinion of MACUSA's efficiency is going to need to be revised._

He'd known the moment that Sybil had spoken the prophecy regarding Mister Harris that not only would it magically appear in the British Ministry's Hall of Prophecy but also in the MACUSA equivalent. Auror Picquery was correct in that, since Mister Harris was an American citizen and a user of magic, albeit only VERY recently, they had some say in how things proceeded. However he'd hoped that it'd be a day or so before American Aurors would be dispatched to investigate the young man the prophecy was centered on. That would be time enough to contact Kingsley with what they'd learned and ensure that the Americans wouldn't be able to keep the entire affair to themselves. While not an antagonistic relationship, MACUSA and the British Ministery had a somewhat adversarial relationship that could make joint operations difficult to create and maintain.

He hoped that this would not be the case here.

"Now, while MACUSA's grateful for Professor Trelawney using her abilities to discern a clear and present threat to the world, we'll take it from here," Auror Picquery said politely but with steamroller undertones. "Any information that you've managed to gather thus far, any theories you might have, are to be turned over to me and my partner immediately. MACUSA would also appreciate it if you were to return to Great Britain with the next twelve hours without resistance. We promise to keep you in the loop and pass on any relevant information to the British Ministry of Magic as expediently as possible."

"But this isn't just an American problem!" Miss Rosenberg exclaimed not in favor of anyone taking her friend anywhere or kicking the four of them out. "This could affect the whole world!"

"The Magical Congress recognizes this, Miss Rosenberg, and that is why not only the British Ministry but ALL magical governments will be kept informed on the matter," Auror Picquery said, not changing her tone in the slightest. "However given the British magical community's recent…shortcomings, it is felt that the greater good would best be served if we handled the matter instead."

"What do you mean 'shortcomings'?!" Hermione asked, sounding like she suspected that all British Wizards and Witches had just been insulted.

"Let's be frank, Miss Granger; in the past ten years alone the British wizarding community has turned a blind eye to the return of one of the darkest wizards since Gellert Grindelwald, had its primary prison for criminals destroyed, essentially had its government overthrown by a terrorist group, did little to stop the deaths of many no-maj-born wizards and witches and in the end only recovered due to luck," Auror Picquery replied, showing that she had little respect for the British Ministry of Magic. "After so many failures and general incompetence, leaving such an important prophecy to members of the British wizarding community would be idiotic."

"Like MACUSA has such a perfect record itself!" Hermione fired back clearly intent on defending the community to which she belonged. "President Harkaway breeding Crups, Rappaport's Law and the Great Sasquatch Rebellion just to name a few!"

"I won't claim that MACUSA hasn't had a few poor moments in its history, Miss Granger. However, if you check your history books, you'll find that our incidents are rather spaced out, with it being a stretch to say we had one a decade," Auror Picquery said, not concerned in the least. "A much better record than the British Minister of Magic and our government has NEVER been co-opted by terrorists."

He could tell Hermione was fuming at her inability to counter the statement and it spoke well of her growing maturity that she wasn't letting things slip into attacks of character. However he knew that things could become very heated if a cool head didn't infuse some rational thinking into the situation.

Fortunately Xander chose this moment to stop being a spectator.

"Before you two get too deep into your mudslinging, I'd just like to say that the Brits got here first and have been doing a good job so far," Xander said, looking Auror Picquery right in the eyes. "If Mojo Congress wants in, they're welcome to help but they'll be working WITH the Brits. If your bosses have a problem with that then they can forget about getting any help from me. I might know Giles' friends only a little better than I know you but if G-Man trusts them, that's good enough for me."

A slightly sour look washed over Picquery's face but a single hand placed on her shoulder by her partner Auror Graves helped her regain her professional composure.

"Very well. I'll have to clear it with my superiors but given the importance of the future events mentioned in the prophecy, I imagine they'll agree to the compromise," Auror Picquery said with barely any polite warmth in her tone. "However I would recommend not pushing your luck too far, Mister Harris. While you do play a central role in the prophecy, it's not specified what circumstances you'll be fulfilling your destiny under. Given the magnitude of the changes coming, the Magical Congress might decide that some rights might need to be temporarily suspended for the greater good of the world."

"A great many terrible things have been done in the past in the name of 'the greater good', Auror Picquery," Rupert said with a slight warning in his voice. "I do not think anyone here will be very appreciative if your good intentions wound up taking the world someplace it need not have gone."

"Duly noted, Mister Giles," Auror Picquery said without giving anything away concerning her thoughts or feelings. "Now I would appreciate a summary of what you have learned so far. I will likely interrupt if I feel a fact needs further clarification."

With a grudging nod of his head Rupert summarized what had been learned since he and the ladies had arrived in Sunnydale leading up to the most recent battle with Ardyn Izunia. As a group they also mentioned what avenues of inquiry they were pursuing in order to nail down the particulars of the prophecy. True, they might've forgotten about a few, but that was simply precautionary. If they told the MACUSA aurors everything then the local magical community might still try to force them out of the situation despite Xander's threat. That or they might try to control the information 'discovered' in order to maintain a position of superiority and that could lead to disaster down the road.

"A good start. I will inform my superiors so that they can expedite matters," Auror Picquery said, sounding pleased that things were already in motion. "Graves will remain here to aid you."

With that the woman left the library, leaving her partner behind.

"I realize that my partner can rub people the wrong way sometimes but she really is good at her job," Auror Graves said, trying to make up for his partner's behavior. "Her family has…high expectations of her."

"Her family?" Hermione asked before the metaphorical gears began spinning in her head. "Bloody hell! She's Madam President Picquery's granddaughter!"

"Yeah, so you can imagine what people think when they hear about that," Graves said, confirming the declaration with a nod. "Her family isn't much better. Once people have a taste of what it's like at the top, it's not easy to settle for anything less."

"As I recall, your partner's grandmother had someone with the last name Graves as her right hand during her term in office," he said, feeling a little concerned as the facts fell into place in his mind.

"Yes, my grandfather Percival Graves," Auror Graves said with a shamed expression as well as a look in his eyes that implied he was accustomed to people making the connection. "He was a good Auror, you know, did a lot of good, but people only remember that he was replaced and impersonated by the dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald. Now every time people look at my family they wonder if we can really be trusted to do our jobs. My younger brother Merton chose to take up a career as a musician with a band called 'The Weird Sisters' to escape the looks he got back home."

"You're your own man, buddy," Xander said, looking at the conclusion he'd already come to himself. "Doesn't matter who you're related to. What you do decides who you are."

"Quite right, Auror Graves," he said in complete agreement with the sentiment. "There is nothing you can do about the past but you can work to shape your future."

"My partner said the same thing once she'd had enough of me moping over my ancestor and how people saw me," Auror Graves said with a smile of gratitude.

With understanding achieved they all resumed their work to examine what knowledge Xander had gained thanks to the cracks he'd gained from Ardyn's appearance and the battle that followed. While he did not understand all of it, the one thing that became clear was that whoever Xander had been in his past life was a very unique individual indeed.

However, even as he worked with the others to understand the prophecy, he couldn't help but feel an ominous future approaching on swift wings. For if someone with such unique powers and such a unique past life was needed in order to avert the decimation of the world as it fell to darkness, then that could only mean that this Ever-Living-One was equally unique. Could this threat be unique enough that known methods of defeating evil would have no effect?

The answer his mind came up with was not an encouraging one.

* * *

 _ **Sunnydale General Hospital, Two Days Later**_

 _ **Xander**_ _ **'**_ _ **s POV**_

 _Time to see what old man Isaac really knows,_ he thought as he strode into the hospital even as part of his mind thought on tomorrow.

Tomorrow when Giles expected the Order of the Black Dagger to arrive with its increase in both numbers as well as skill.

For the past two days the Scoobies, Giles' friends and the MACUSA aurors had been working hard to build upon what the prophecy told them would be happening in the future. While he couldn't say he liked Picquery's attitude, with the aid of the Magical Congress they were making good progress. Like most governments they kept their eyes and ears open for threats to their safety before ranking them in order of priority when it came to dealing with them. Naturally anyone that represented a national or international threat ranked pretty high on the 'keep a close watch on' list, both in terms of potential future targets as well as capabilities. Thus far they hadn't found any demon or dark mage going by the title of 'Ever-Living-One' and neither were there any powerful enough to make redrawing numerous maps a necessity.

That was lending credibility to the theory that either the big bad was an Old One making a comeback or a new arrival expected to come from some other dimension.

As a result, increased scrutiny was going to be put on the Deeper Well and on wards under the control of every magical government the world over geared towards detecting dimensional disruption. The idea was the sooner they found out that the Ever-Living-One had arrived the sooner forces could mobilize to oppose him or it and that would give him time to power up for the big showdown.

Scholars and archeologists, both mundane as well as magical, were also looking into any possible Royal Arms locations. The more legwork that got done before he left Sunnydale, the quicker he'd get ready to fight his destined foe and the fewer innocent people died waiting for him to get ready. He doubted that he'd be able to avoid doing ANY work but it'd be nice if he went from having years of searching to do to only a couple of months.

In the end he'd been left with little to do on in the library so he'd decided that he'd given old man Isaac enough time to recover from his pummeling at the hands of the Black Dagger people to answer a few more questions. Considering how life changing things were going to get for him, he wasn't about to go in without as many facts as he could get his hands on. One thing that fighting alongside the Slayer had taught him it was that prep work and going through dusty books made winning a lot easier.

Walking up to the nurse's station, he waited for the thirty-something woman to notice him before speaking.

"Can I help you, young man?" she asked politely though he could tell that she was feeling the hours of her shift.

"Yeah. Could you tell me which room Mister Isaac is in?" he asked with a friendly grin. "The antique store owner? I've bought some things from him and heard he got attacked by robbers."

"Oh yes! Charming old man reminds me of my grandfather," the nurse replied with a genuine smile. "Let's see…he's in room two-oh-one."

"Thanks!" he said before heading for the nearby elevators.

Heading towards the stairs, he started coming up with questions that'd be the most helpful and probe just how involved the old man really was. Considering the prophecy, he doubted that the store owner was just a bit player whose role was limited to just passing on a magic ring. The obvious first question was what the woman who'd given the old man the ring looked like, with the need for details stressed. The second would be to see if the man knew anything about the prophecy or the elements that made it up. Even if the mystery woman only passed on a little info to Isaac, it would be more than the Scooby gang had yesterday. He'd also see about getting a sample of the old man's hair or something so it could be tested back in the library.

Just in case the man was only pretending to be a normal human.

It didn't take long for him to reach the room and when he entered he was just in time to see the old man looking at his meal in disgust.

"Yeah, that's pretty much been my reaction every time I have to stay here," he said, getting Isaac's attention. "Good thing I can always count on Willow to smuggle in some good stuff."

"Good for you. Sadly I lack a friend willing to go so far to save me from this… sustenance," Isaac said, turning away from the tray of food to look at him. "Now what brings you here young man? Here to see how my recovery is proceeding?"

"That and ask you some more questions," he replied, crossing his arms and looking the store owner right in the eyes. "Turns out you dumped a lot more than some shiny ring in my lap and I need to know everything you know."

"Well, I'll certainly tell you what I can but I'm afraid it's not much," Isaac said, sounding quite cooperative. "What do you wish to know first?"

"Describe the woman who gave you the ring," he replied, making it clear there was no nonsense permitted. "Height, weight, skin color, eye color, the works."

"Well, that shouldn't be a problem. Let's see…black hair, olive green eyes, wears a black gown with white wraps on the sleeves and thigh high heeled boots," Isaac described, looking back in his memory. "Her clothes had a strong Oriental influence. Reminds me of something waitresses wore at a fancy restaurant I dined at overseas."

Certainly a more than he'd been expecting for his first question but, with such helpful information, the gang could probably narrow their search to any important figures from the Asian part of the world. The fact that the woman who'd passed the ring onto Isaac wore definitively modern clothing as opposed to robes more than a century out of date implied much. One thing being that, whatever sort of life she lived, it didn't require her to keep society at arm's length or deny certain aesthetic liberties.

To him, anyone who interacted with modern society always left a trail that could be followed and, if they were a part of the magical or supernatural community, that got doubled.

"Did she say anything else when she stopped by your shop? Something other than what to do with the ring?" he asked, moving onto the next important topic.

"Such as?" Isaac asked, sounding like he'd prefer a little more detail.

"Such as what she thought would happen after the ring got to the right person?" he replied, not wanting to give the man too much wiggle room. "No way would anyone come all the way to Sunnydale from the other side of the Pacific just to drop off a ring she knew almost nothing about. She must've had some idea of why the ring had to get here and get to me."

"I'm afraid that she wasn't all that forthcoming about her motivations," Isaac said, brows furrowing in focus. "Seemed rather interested in examining the world around her, as if comparing it to something she'd seen before. All I can say for certain was that she was looking forward to the day when the ring found you. It was sort of like someone smiling when beholding the house they used to live in go from run down to restored to its former glory."

Now THAT implied that whoever the mystery woman was might've been from the same future as his past live self was and was anticipating the return of the old kingdom.

If that was so then perhaps if he meditated or did something to sort through the memories that'd been locked away, he might be able to identify her. Then there had to be some sort of magical thing-a-ma-bob that could project that memory out in the open for the others to see. Once they had a mug shot of the woman who'd given old man Isaac the ring, it'd be that much easier to identify her, locate her and hopefully get some answers.

Unless she could alter her appearance at will…

 _Think positive! Think positive!_ he thought, shaking the complication out of his conscious mind. _You can do this! You can figure things out!_

"While I am almost certainly less informed than you about what is going on, Xander, I can say one thing with certainty," Mister Isaac said from his hospital bed with confidence. "Destiny might be a cruel mistress at times but it can also be a source of great comfort. Only two things determine which it will be: time and how you react to it. Choose wisely."

Personally he thought that Fate and Destiny were passing the pot between them with this whole 'King of Light' crap but, even if it was, there wasn't much he could do.

As much as he would like to believe that and turn his back on Professor Trelawney's prophecy before going back to business as usual on the Hellmouth, his instincts told him it'd only make things worse. Turning your back to a problem or trouble when it was barreling down the road of life at you only made the mess that much bigger when they hit.

Better to face it head on and at least he wouldn't be facing the events of the prophecy alone.

He had the Scoobies backing him up and, if the glimpse of the future was true, then some 'old friends' would be hooking up with him soon enough.

It wasn't enough to make him overly optimistic or cocky but it did silence the usual pessimism that lived in his brain.

He hoped it'd last.

* * *

 _ **The Next Day**_

 _ **Sunnydale High School Library**_

 _ **Hermione**_ _ **'**_ _ **s POV**_

"So… today's the day," Xander said from his seat in the room.

"Indeed. Some… sympathetic eyes and ears confirmed detecting members of the Order cross the Arizona-California border just after midnight last night," Mister Giles said as he finished securing an armored chest plate to his body. "In all likelihood they will be here in a little over an hour."

"We got a plan or are we gonna pull a Slayer?" Xander asked, causing both the blonde and the brunette at the weapon's cage to look at him.

"What's that mean?" Faith asked even as she secured a sheathed saber to her waist.

"Basically flying by the seat of your pants and making it up as you go," Xander replied, not sounding too concerned about retaliation.

Likely because he believed his newly acquired teleportation ability would keep them from getting close enough to do him actual harm. Since the fight with Ardyn Izunia, a person they hadn't managed to find much information about, the prophesied 'King of Light' had been put through his paces by Mister Giles so that they could learn the limitations of his new abilities. From what they could tell, the teleportation ability relied on a thrown object in order to work. More specifically one that Xander had formed a mystical connection with, though they had yet to determine if this connection was formed consciously or subconsciously. The actual teleportation event was consciously triggered by Xander and could be done at any point in the object's journey through the air, making for quite the tactical advantage.

Another advantage seemed to be that the magic allowed him to store weapons in what likely some kind of pocket dimension and then summon them at will. With this ability it meant that it would be difficult to disarm Xander but it was not without its flaws, as was customarily the case with all magic. For one he could only place a weapon in his pocket dimension if it was in his hand at the time and that meant that if an enemy could succeed in knocking it from the future king's hands, he'd have to reacquire it. There was also the fact that Xander would only be able to wield two weapons at a time, assuming they were weapons that could effectively be wielded with a single arm. They'd tested the possibility that the Californian teenager could summon more than two and somehow telekinetically manipulate them, but it proved not to be the case.

All in all, with the proper training, Xander would be a formidable opponent for many to face.

Then, of course, there was the elemental magic.

Thus far they had been able to coax lightning, fire and some manner of freezing magic out of the central figure of the prophecy but it hadn't been quite as powerful as the one sent at Ardyn Izunia. She'd theorized that his heightened emotions at the time had bolstered the magic somehow and that, as a result, for as long as the young man was calmer, they would be weaker. Xander had tried to work himself back up to the state he'd been when he'd chased after Ardyn but this failed to increase the magic potency by an appreciable amount.

Put both together and she was feeling more optimistic about the coming battle.

"It works for us," Buffy said, sounding a little defensive.

"Be that as it may, I fear we will need some sort of plan if we are to keep injuries to a minimum and avoid fatalities altogether," Giles admonished before moving over to the cage himself. "First and foremost we must keep the fight away from the innocent. I suggest we go to Breaker's Wood for that. The trees will provide ample cover from enemy attacks and make forming a united front difficult for them while affording us a means of launching hit and run attacks."

"Sounds like a lot of work," Buffy said, sounding less than enthused at the plan.

"Perhaps but one way or another, this will be a trying battle," Giles said, testing the heft of an axe before sliding it into a loop on his belt. "A battle that will be made easier if we have a strategic plan in mind rather than 'winging it'."

Indeed.

She could not count the number of times that she, Ron and Harry had been shown quite enthusiastically the benefits of having a plan as well as the perils of NOT having a plan. In most cases it was when she was calling the shots that they'd taken action with a plan in mind while the escapades where they went in without a plan being when one of her friends led the way. Given what she'd read about the Order of the Black Dagger, they were a level or two above what Voldemort and his Death Eaters were capable of in terms of lethality and skill.

No haphazard approach would aid them.

A short while later all were suitably armed for the battle to come with melee weapons provided to all despite Auror Picquery's protests that magic would be defense enough for either witch or wizard. Mister Giles, however, insisted, warning that the Order forces might have strong wards imbued in their armor and weapons, reducing the effectiveness of magic significantly. A melee weapon would provide another option as well as give them additional protection should things shrink to striking distance despite the best efforts of the magic users.

For her, she'd been given a custom made spear that Mister Giles had made for Miss Summers to use should a demon come to Sunnydale that had a method of vanquishing that required the use of such a weapon. She'd been a bit concerned that it would be too heavy for her to wield effectively, however the former Watcher told her that the weapon maker he'd contracted was well known for creating practical weaponry. In the weapon maker's mind, creating a weapon that only one person could use was idiotic, especially if it was crucial to defeating your chosen foe. As such the spear wasn't particularly heavy, even if held up with one arm, so she could only imagine that if she added her other arm she'd be able to use the weapon with ease.

From there the group departed from the library to the vehicles awaiting them outside: Mister Giles'… 'classic automobile' and the van owned by Miss Rosenberg's boyfriend. Auror Picquery protested, saying that she could apparate to the forest easily or make a simple portkey to get them all there. Mister Harris made a remark about how lazy witches and wizards must be if they used magic for every little thing and, that, of course sparked the older woman's ire. Fortunately Mister Giles pointed out the tactical reason for not using magic.

Keeping the enemy in the dark about what they might face for as long as possible.

While the Order might learn that their target has attracted additional allies, keeping them in the dark about the threat level of the newcomers could lead to useful opportunities for them.

Not something a wise person would let slip by for no other reason than pride.

This had proven enough to silence the MACUSA Auror's whining and so the short ride to Breaker's Wood passed in a silence with rising tension. Understandable, considering that they were about to enter into battle with a force of demons dedicated to ensuring that the world ended no matter what.

Such dark beings would not be pushovers.

"Now that we are here, we should all take up positions that are strategically sound," Giles said, looking at their environment. "If I recall correctly they should be coming from that direction. In most combat situations, the ranged fighters keep to the rear while the rest engage in close quarters combat."

"Soldier Boy also tells me the spell slingers should take the high ground," Xander said, pointing to some fallen trees being propped up by a boulder sticking out of the ground. "It'll give you a clearer view without anyone getting in the way."

"He say anything about the rest of us?" Faith asked, her head on a constant swivel for signs of trouble.

"That us managing an ambush would help tilt things our way," Xander replied, summoning the sword from before with crystal holy light. "We get a decoy and two to stay out in the open to get their attention and then we lure them into the kill box. Once they're past the point of no return we pounce, taking down as many of them in the first couple of seconds as possible before they get over the shock."

"While ambush is indeed a valid way of gaining a tactical advantage, the demons that make up the Order likely possess enhanced senses," Giles said, not sounding confident in such a tactic. "Without preparation to conceal our scents, heartbeats and body heat, they would deduce our tactic swiftly."

"They would if their target was the decoy," Xander said, revealing that part of the plan. "I stand out in the open, put on a show that makes them focus on me, and they'll completely forget about sniffing for potential threats. They'll charge me head on, leaving you guys to get the timing right for the ambush."

"NO! It's too risky!" Willow exclaimed in opposition. "If they've got crossbows or something they can pick you off at a distance. The entire plan would fall apart!"

"They're called the Order of the Black Dagger, not the Order of the Black Crossbow," Xander said, not sounding worried about being shot. "At best they might have throwing knives and that I'll be able to see coming and deal with."

"I can place a Protego Duo charm on those standing out in the open," she said, contributing something to the plan. "It can provide protection against both physical and magical attacks. Best of all, it's invisible until it is struck with an attack, so it's unlikely that they will realize it's there until it's too late. I can't say whether or not it'll last past one or two attacks but hopefully by then you'll have successfully reached cover."

"See! We got the bases covered, Willow," Xander said, making it sound as though it'd be no trouble at all.

While not quite as simple as that, she had to admit that it was somewhat sound.

And it was likely to be the best they could manage in the time they had.

"Better get into position then," she said before beginning to stride towards the elevated position indicated by Xander earlier.

She hoped that she managed to make it out of this without a scratch, otherwise Ron would never let her hear the end of it. He was the one who'd told her that she was 'bloody barmy' for wanting to seek out danger after they'd barely made it through Voldemort's spree of terror alive.

What her friend didn't realize and what she'd accepted was that danger didn't ignore you just because you chose to ignore it or avoid it. Trouble did as it pleased and so you either learned to protect yourself against it or you seek it out before it became too strong for you to overcome either alone or with friends.

She would not ignore a problem.

She would gather what she needed then stride forth to solve it.

Such was her way.


End file.
